None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free.

Liberty and democracy are eternal enemies.

A man is either free or he is not. There cannot be any apprenticeship for freedom.

Power is so apt to be insolent, and Liberty to be saucy, that they are very seldom upon good terms.

The self is like an infant: given free rein, it craves to suckle.

Pushing someone toward liberty does not set her free; taking the chains off a prisoner does not give him freedom.

Let us make our own mistakes, but let us take comfort in the knowledge that they are our own mistakes.

Democracy is the menopause of Western society, the grand climacteric of the body social. Fascism is its middle-aged lust.

Despotism subjects a nation to one tyrant—­democracy to many.

I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others.

Democracy forever teases us with the contrast between its ideals and its realities, between its heroic possibilities and its sorry achievements.

If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever.

Give us this day our television, and an automobile, but deliver us from freedom.