Terry Eastland Quotes

And this I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am and what I am about.

our society -- unlike most in the world -- presupposes that freedom and liberty are in a frame of reference that makes the individual, not government, the keeper of his tastes, beliefs, and ideas.

Each man must grant himself … the morality that suits him.

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

What makes America unique in the world is the idea of the self-directed life.

… it [liberty] denotes not merely freedom from bodily restraint, but also the right of the individual to engage in any of the common occupations of life, to acquire useful knowledge, to marry, establish a home, bring up children, to worship God according to the dictates of one's own conscience and generally, to enjoy those privileges long recognized in common law as essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.

I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.

For centuries, the battle of morality was fought between those who claimed that your life belongs to God and those who claimed that it belongs to your neighbors - between those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of ghosts in heaven and those who preached that the good is self-sacrifice for the sake of incompetents on earth. And no one came to say that your life belongs to you and that the good is to live it.

Those who taught you were wrong. I have never set down a "right" or "wrong," a "do" or a "don't." To do so would be to strip you completely of your greatest gift - the opportunity to do as you please.

Individualism has really the higher aim. Modern morality consists in accepting the standard of one's age.

Liberty, understood by materialists as the right to do or not to do anything not directly injurious to others, we understand as the faculty of choosing, among the various modes of fulfilling duty, those most in harmony with our own tendencies.

Americans different in some maybe thoughts or emphasis still have the same ideas. They want a government that lets them be free, that leaves them alone, that doesn't interrupt and interfere with every aspect of their life, that lets them go to work and keep more of what they've worked hard to have.

Those who fear that we are losing our individualism couldn't be more wrong: Americans have never been more free to create and recreate themselves.

America is a mosaic not of groups but of individuals, each of whom carries a host of cultural influences, some chosen, some inherited, some absorbed by osmosis. That mosaic is held together by the pursuit of happiness, the most powerful mortar ever conceived. Left alone, it will long endure.

Abortion is a question of choice.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

A modern civilization is only possible when it is accepted that singular beings exist and express themselves freely.

The free way of life proposes ends, but it does not prescribe means.

If men were born free, they would, so long as they remained free, form no conception of good and evil.

I believe in the freedom of choice in both life and death.

Religion has the right to express its opinion in the service of the people, but God in creation has set us free: it is not possible to interfere spiritually in the life of a person.

The sanctity of a woman's right to control her own destiny is a moral force of its own... I came to realize that the question of choice is to be answered, not by the state, but by the individual.

As Americans, we don't see the role of government as guaranteeing outcomes, but allowing free men and women to flourish based on their own vision, their hard work and their personal responsibility.

The whole American experiment has been predicated on giving individuals as much control over their own lives as possible.

Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.