Learned Hand Quotes

It [liberty] is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.

Starting from unlimited freedom, I conclude with unlimited despotism.

Excessive liberty leads both nations and individuals into excessive slavery.

When the people are sheep, the government is always a wolf.

Tyranny and anarchy are alike incompatible with freedom, security, and the enjoyment of opportunity.

Let the poor man count as his enemy, and his worst enemy, every invader of the right of free discussion.

Tyranny is always better organized than freedom.

Every tyrant who has lived has believed in freedom for himself.

The splendid empire of Charles the Fifth was erected upon the grave of liberty.

There is no such thing as a little freedom. Either you are all free, or you are not free.

There is nothing with which it is so dangerous to take liberties as liberty itself.

Give the peasants neither life nor death.

Man's capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man's inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.

It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.

Without Liberty, Law loses its nature and its name, and becomes oppression. Without Law, Liberty also loses its nature and its name, and becomes licentiousness.

A heavy aristocracy and corruption are two bridles in the mouths of a people which will prevent them from making any effectual efforts against their masters.

Man is born free, yet he is everywhere in chains.

The USA was founded in the name of democracy, equality and individual freedom, but is failing to deliver the fundamental promise of protecting rights for all.

Better a hundred years of tyranny than one day of anarchy.

In all tyrannical governments the supreme magistracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man, or one and the same body of men; and whenever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty.

The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments.

That which killed my late master, & so many of his predecessors. The responsibility of arbitrary power.

Oppression makes a wise man mad.

The history of most countries has been that of majorities—mounted majorities, clad in iron, armed with death, treading down the tenfold more numerous minorities.

The mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God.