Francis Schaeffer Quotes

Those who sell their liberty for security are understandable, if pitiable, creatures. Those who sell the liberty of others for wealth, power, or even a moment's respite deserve only the end of a rope.

The people are frightened. When they are frightened, they are much more willing to give us their liberties. But giving up their liberties won't make them safer, that's the real sad part of it.

All those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is the surest and shortest means to accomplish it.

History reminds us that dictators and despots arise during times of severe economic crisis.

He would see civilization in danger of perishing under the oppression of a gigantic paradox: he would see multitudes of people starving in the midst of plenty, and nations preparing for war although pledged to peace.

In a free world there is, alas, more common crime than in a dictatorial system.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

Workers ... do not eat legal rights but bread. History, especially recent history, gives much evidence to support the contention that men want security more than freedom and that for an indefinite time they may be successfully governed by a dictator who keeps in mind the maxim that 'contented cows give the best milk.'

We are gong down the road to stateism. Where we will wind up, no one can tell, but if some of the new programs seriously proposed should be adopted, there is danger that the individual-whether farmer, worker, manufacturer, lawyer, or doctor-will soon he an economic slave pulling an oar in the galley of the state.

Whatever may be the immediate gains and losses, the dangers to our safety arising from political suppression are always greater than the dangers to that safety arising from political freedom.

The most dangerous diseases with which a free country can be infested, are two fashions, each strong in numbers, if their heats and animosities are come to such a height, that any side, in the struggle for power, is willing to give up liberty, rather than their irregular appetites should be disappointed. Where this happens to be the case, the condition of the public is indeed very desperate, inasmuch as liberty cannot subsist, unless where it has a great many more friends than enemies, because they who attack, supply by craft and diligence what they want in other strengths.

To bargain freedom for security is the devil's bargain. Having made the bargain, one enjoys neither freedom nor security.

Lack of outlets, excess capacity, complete deadlock, in the end regular recurrence of national bankruptcies and other disasters--perhaps world wars from sheer capitalist despair--may confidently be anticipated. History is as simple as that.

We are willing enough to praise freedom when she is safely tucked away in the past and cannot be a nuisance. In the present, amidst dangers whose outcome we cannot foresee, we get nervous about her, and admit censorship

… new authoritarians are conducting an epoch-making historical experiment as to whether regimes that allow private freedoms can endure when they deny their citizens public freedom.

The 21st century can and must be an American century. It began with terror, war, and economic calamity. It is our duty to steer it onto the path of freedom, peace, and prosperity.

The suppression of civil liberties is too many less a matter for horror than the curtailment of the freedom to profit.

But wherever we are, we must all, in our daily lives, live up to the age-old faith that peace and freedom walk together. In too many of our cities today, the peace is not secure because freedom is incomplete." (John F. Kennedy, June 10, 1963, American University speech)

If our economy of freedom fails to distribute wealth as ably as it has created it, the road to dictatorship will be open to any man who can persuasively promise security to all.

The prospect of a government that treats all its citizens as criminal suspects is more terrifying than any terrorist. And even more frightening is a citizenry that can accept the surrender of its freedoms as the price of "freedom".

All of the civil rights problems during the past years have created a situation where America right now is moving toward a police state. You can't have anything otherwise. So that's your supposition.

When peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries is in danger.

Without justice, there can be no peace.

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

I think there is a danger that an environmental crisis can be used in precisely the same way as the terrorist threat can be used in terms of giving up freedom.