Henry Ward Beecher Quotes

The laws would not prevent each man from living according to his inclination, unless individuals harmed each other

In a free society, individuals have the right to do right or wrong, as long as they don't threaten or infringe upon the rights or property of others.

The idea is that the state doesn't have rights to limit individuals' wants and passions. I disagree with that. I think we absolutely have rights because there are consequences to letting people live out whatever wants or passions they desire.

Freedom's untidy, and free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things.

Liberty plucks justice by the nose; The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart Goes all decorum.

Liberty is liberty, not equality or fairness or justice or human happiness or a quiet conscience.

A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.

Whenever men take the law into their own hands, the loser is the law. And when the law loses, freedom languishes.

Liberty without virtue would be no blessing to us.

The individual is prior to society and society must be ordered to the good of the individual.

Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty.

In a free society a large degree of human activity is none of the government's business. We should make criminal what's going to hurt other people and other than that we should leave it to people to make their own choices.

Liberty is precious. But so is life. It should not be so difficult for men and women of good will and good heart and sound mind to find the right balance between the two.

Freedom & Duty always go hand in hand and if the free do not accept the duty of social responsibility, they will not long remain free.

I believe that my theory is correct; for whatever be the question upon which I am arguing, whether it be religious, philosophical, political, or economical; whether it affects well-being, morality, equality, right, justice, progress, responsibility, property, labor, exchange, capital, wages, taxes, population, credit, or Government; at whatever point of the scientific horizon I start from, I invariably come to the same thing—the solution of the social problem is in liberty.

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.

Let us have justice, and then we shall have enough liberty!

So long as men and women are free, no one is safe. People will be in danger because others can't operate vehicles responsibly or shoot straight. Because physicians are sometimes incompetent and lawyers dishonest. But most of all they will be in danger from ideas. It is the price we willingly pay to be free. Nor would we have it any other way.

Liberty begets license.

Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint; the more restraint on others to keep off from us, the more liberty we have.

The only things government can do are regulate and redistribute, prohibit and penalize, confiscate and command. Are these the things that liberty is made of? Somebody else's money and an endless list of Thou Shalt Nots?

There are just two rules of governance in a free society: Mind your own business. Keep your hands to yourself.

It was Rousseau who was largely responsible for the problem by giving currency to the idea that freedom can exist without responsibility and discipline.

The man who barely abstains from violating either the person, or the estate, or the reputation of his neighbours, has surely very little positive merit. He fulfils, however, all the rules of what is peculiarly called justice, and does every thing which his equals can with propriety force him to do, or which they can punish him for not doing. We may often fulfil all the rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing.

The individual is not accountable to society for his actions, insofar as these concern the interests of no person but himself.