timeline of individual liberty & human dignity

"Mankind must have laws, and conform to them, or their life would be as bad as that of the most savage beast. And the reason for this is that no man’s nature is able to know what is best for human society; or knowing, always able and willing to do what is best."
- Plato

"Democracy arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal."
- Aristotle

"A mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than can a field, however fertile, without cultivation…Freedom is a possession of inestimable value."
- Cicero

"No free man shall be taken, imprisoned, disseised, outlawed, banished, or in any way destroyed, nor will we proceed or prosecute against him except by the lawful judgment of his peers and by the law of the land." - William D‘Aubigny, Huntingfeld, King John, Delacis, Marshall, Jr.

"The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page . . . Understand that you may believe; believe that you may understand."
- Augustine

"We can’t have full knowledge all at once. We must start by believing; then afterwards we may be led on to master the evidence for ourselves."
- Aquinas

"I say further that it is by the same authority that laws and anything else instituted by election must receive any addition or subtraction or even total overhaul, any interpretation and any suspension: depending on the demands of time and place and other circumstances that might make one of these measures opportune for the sake of the common advantage in such matters."
-Padua

"Nowadays the rage for possession has got to such a pitch that there is nothing in the realm of nature, whether sacred or profane, out of which profit cannot be squeezed."
-Erasmus

"It is a good general rule about men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, liars and deceivers, fearful of danger and greedy for gain."
- Machiavelli

"A Christian is free and independent in every respect, a bond servant to none. A Christian is a dutiful servant in every respect, owing a duty to everyone."
- Luther

"The morality of clean blood ought to be one of the first lessons taught us by our pastors and teachers. – The physical is the substratum of the spiritual; and this fact ought to give to the food we eat, and the air we breathe, a transcendent significance."
- Tyndale

“Seeing that a Pilot steers the ship in which we sail, who will never allow us to perish even in the midst of shipwrecks, there is no reason why our minds should be overwhelmed with fear and overcome with weariness.”
- Calvin

“He that goeth about to persuade a multitude that they are not so well governed as they ought to be shall never want attentive and favorable hearers.”
- Hooker

“By liberty is understood, according to the proper signification of the word, the absence of external impediments; which impediments may oft take away part of a man’s power to do what he would, but cannot hinder him from using the power left him according as his judgement and reason shall dictate to him.”
- Hobbes

"Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image; but he who destroys a good book kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were in the eye.”
- Milton

"Tis hard to comprehend how one man can come to be master of many, equal to himself in right, unless it be by consent or by force.”
- Sidney

"The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of law, where there is no law, there is no freedom.”
- Locke

"Democratic and aristocratic states are not in their own nature free. Political liberty is to be found only in moderate governments; and even in these it is not always found. It is there only when there is no abuse of power. But constant experience shows us that every man invested with power is apt to abuse it, and to carry his authority as far as it will go.”
- Montesquieu

“Let not princes disdain to admit into their councils those who are most capable of giving them good advice… It is by this means only that we are likely to see what virtue, science and authority can do, when animated by the noblest emulation, and working unanimously for the happiness of mankind. But so long as power is on one side, and knowledge and understanding alone on the other, the learned will seldom make great objects their study, princes will still more rarely do great actions, and the peoples will continue to be, as they are, mean, corrupt and miserable.”
– Franklin

"Every wise, just, and mild government, by rendering the condition of its subjects easy and secure, will always abound most in people, as well as in commodities and riches.”
- Hume

"Free people, remember this maxim: we may acquire liberty, but it is never recovered if it is once lost.”
- Rousseau

"Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.”
- Smith

"The liberty of the press is indeed essential to the nature of a free state: but this consists in laying no previous restraints upon publications, and not in freedom from censure for criminal matter when published. Every freeman has an undoubted right to lay what sentiments he pleases before the public: to forbid this, is to destroy the freedom of the press: but if he publishes what is improper, mischievous, or illegal, he must take the consequence of his own temerity.”
- Blackstone

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”
- Burke

"The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people’s hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice.”
- Adams

"These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as freedom should not be highly rated.”
- Paine

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
- Jefferson

"The best government is that which teaches us to govern ourselves.”
- Goethe

"Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.”
- Madison

"In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself”
- Hamilton

"It is justice, not charity, that is wanting in the world.”
- Wollstonecraft

"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
- Jefferson

"Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change."
- Shelley

"Nothing is so galling to a people not broken in from the birth as a paternal, or, in other words, a meddling government, a government which tells them what to read, and say, and eat, and drink and wear."
- Macaulay

"Everyone wants to live at the expense of the state. They forget that the state wants to live at the expense of everyone"
- Bastiat

"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well."
- Emerson

"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude."
- de Tocqueville

"Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inaction, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury."
- Stuart Mill

"Our reliance is the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit which prized liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors."
- Lincoln

"Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe."
- Douglass

"This American government – what is it but a tradition, though a recent one, endeavoring to transmit itself unimpaired to posterity, but each instant losing some of its integrity?"
- Thoreau

"No one can be perfectly free till all are free; no one can be perfectly moral till all are moral; no one can be perfectly happy till all are happy. Society exists for the benefit of its members, not the members for the benefit of society."
- Spencer

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority, still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it."
- Acton