Barack Obama Quotes

I receive many death threats. I used to love walking around New York City alone, but I can't do that anymore.

It is no accident that wherever the State ha taken economic decision away from the citizen, it has deprived him of his other liberties as well.

The government continues to erode our freedom.

The absolute rights of individuals may be resolved into the right of personal security, the right of personal liberty, and the right to enjoy and acquire property

He who opposes the public liberty overthrows his own.

It all boils down to the safety of the public. It wasn’t a decision made lightly. This wasn’t about free speech. It was about safety.

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.

I believe in the right to defend yourself.

I'm not a security-type person: I don't want to have bodyguards around me. I'm not into all that.

One of the things that's important to me as a Londoner is making sure my family, people I care about, are safe.

I think it can be very safe to go to O'Hare and Wrigley and Sox park and Soldier Field, but you have to deal with some reality. Just because a threat is not specific and verifiable doesn't mean nearly what it used to mean, in terms of you being able to sleep well at night.

Freedom does not die from frontal attack. It dies because men in power no longer believe in a system based upon liberty.

I view it as a threat to my and my family's well-being whenever anyone seeks to erode or take away my Second Amendment civil liberty.

I suppose I have been contending with issues surrounding my safety and security for years.

It is a scary world out there, and believe me that if someone were to try to come into my house, I want to be able to protect myself.

I have protection. I have police protection. I have personal bodyguards. I have three sets of them. But believe me, this is really psychological for the family. If they want to get me, they can get me. And every time that I have been saved, it's been by coincidence.

The world is a scary place. Even my mother has suggested I take a self defense class.

I was never molested by any person but those who represented the State. I had no lock nor bolt but for the desk which held my papers, not even a nail to put over my latch or windows. I never fastened my door night or day, though I was to be absent several days; not even when the next fall I spent a fortnight in the woods of Maine. And yet my house was more respected than if it had been surrounded by a file of soldiers.

Liberty is the very last idea that seems to occur to anybody, in considering any political or social proposal. It is only necessary for anybody for any reason to allege any evidence of any evil in any human practice, for people instantly to suggest that the practice should be suppressed by the police.

I think that nothing is so important for freedom as recognizing in the law each individual’s natural right to property, and giving individuals a sense that they own something that they’re responsible for, that they have control over, and that they can dispose of.

I don't think America is a safe place for Americans, if you want to know the truth. I don't think Bruss - England or I don't think that Europe is a safe place. No, I don't. I think there are a lot of problems in Europe that are very, very severe.

But 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. That is the philosophy of the First Amendment; and it is this article of faith that sets us apart from most nations in the world.

I think when people talk about civil liberties, they sometimes forget that action taken to protect the citizen against physical violence and physical attack is a blow in favour and not a blow against civil liberties.

There are multitudes of persons whose idea of liberty is the right to do what they please, instead of the right of doing that which is lawful and best.

Whenever a single definite object is made the supreme end of the State, be it the advantage of a class, the safety of the power of the country, the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or the support of any speculative idea, the State becomes for the time inevitably absolute. Liberty alone demands for its realization the limitation of the public authority, for liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition.