Inspirational Quotes on Liberty

“Je voulais vous exposer mon livre aussi succinctement que possible; mais je vois qu'il me faudra y joindre encore quantité d'explications verbales. Mon exposé exigera donc au moins dix soirées d'après le nombre de chapitres de mon livre. (Il y eut quelques rires.) De plus, je dois vous prévenir que mon système n'est pas complètement achevé. (Nouveaux rires.) Je me suis embrouillé dans mes propres données et ma conclusion se trouve en contradiction directe avec l'idée fondamentale du système. Partant de la liberté illimitée, j'aboutis au despotisme illimité. J'ajoute à cela, cependant, qu'il ne peut y avoir d'autre solution du problème que la mienne.”

“I am not one of those who underrate the value of civil and political liberty; but I am well assured that it is only the principles of Christianity which can impart true security, prosperity, and happiness either to individuals or to nations.”

“For the sake of method, I could wish to consider the African trade,—first, with regard to the effect it has upon our own people ; and secondly, as it concerns the blacks, or, as they are more contemptuously styled, the negro slaves, whom we purchase upon the coast. But these two topics are so interwoven together, that it will not be easy to keep them exactly separate. ... When I have charged a black with unfairness and dishonesty, he has answered, if able to clear himself, with an air of disdain, " What! do you think I am a white man ?" Such is the nature, such are the concomitants, of the slave trade... Will not sound policy suggest the necessity of some expedient here?”

“Many men say right and many men say wrong. I might be more ready to speak my mind were it not that I greatly doubt some of those who cry loudest for liberty. I fear that once they had power, they would be the first to trample her underfoot. Liberty with some men means my liberty to do, and your liberty to suffer.”

“We must face the fact that many today are notoriously careless in their living. This attitude finds its way into the church. We have liberty, we have money, we live in comparative luxury. As a result, discipline practically has disappeared. What would a violin solo sound like if the strings on the musician's instrument were all hanging loose, not stretched tight, not "disciplined"?”

“Nothing harms or destroys us but the wrong use of that liberty of choice which God has entrusted to us.”

“I will never sell my liberty for gold.”

“But the soul renounced shall abide in the boundlessness of God's life. This is liberty, this is prosperity. The more we lose, the more we gain.”

“Liberty may be an instrument for giving glory to the Most High, or it may be a curtain used to shield base indulgence of the flesh (I Peter 2:16). You may discover by self-examination of your heart which function liberty serves in your life.”

“Christian liberty then does not teach that there are things in the world in which you are free to indulge yourself. It does not suggest that you may do anything you wish with God's creation. But it teaches that there are things which you are free to enjoy and use as you serve the Lord.”

“There is something childish and legalistic about churches in which all of the saints observe precisely the same standards. When all lives begin to sink into the same mould of denial and exercise of liberty, something is amiss.”

“Wherever God pardons sin, he subdues it... If the fetters of sin be broken off, and we walk at liberty in the ways of God, this is a blessed sign we are pardoned.”

“By nature all men are equal in liberty, but not in other endowments.”

“We must preserve our moral foundation and the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as gifts of God. Then we need to demand that anyone who wishes to represent us do the same.”

“If God gives you rights, no man and no government can take them away from you.”

“True liberty consists only in the power of doing what we ought to will, and in not being constrained to do what we ought not to will.”

“God must speak to us before we have any liberty to speak to him. He must disclose to us who he is before we can offer him what we are in acceptable worship. The worship of God is always a response to the Word of God. Scripture wonderfully directs and enriches our worship.”

“Everyone who has been truly set free by Jesus Christ expresses liberty in these three ways, first in self-control, next in loving service of our neighbor, and third in obedience to the law of God.”

“Christian liberty is freedom not to indulge the flesh but to control the flesh, freedom not to exploit our neighbor but to serve our neighbor, freedom not to disregard the law but to fulfill the law.”

“Only what God has commanded in His word should be regarded as binding; in all else there may be liberty of actions.”