W. Somerset Maugham Quotes

Any nation that thinks more of its ease and comfort than its freedom will soon lose its freedom; and the ironical thing about it is that it will lose its ease and comfort too.

You have spent many lives and much treasure to bring freedom to many lands that were reluctant to receive it. And here you have a people who won it by themselves and need only the help to preserve it.

Freedom. It's not something you go out and die for.

We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Liberty has its roots in blood.

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will loose its freedom.

Just what we need. The American people do not intend to give up all that they have gained by the war.

I'm not a fool and when I swap my life for liberty I've got to know in advance what liberty is, and whose idea of liberty we're talking about and just how much of that liberty we're going to have.

My promises to the people for whom I have waged war have been fulfilled — to accomplish their independence and leave the choice of their rulers to their own will. The presence of an unfortunate soldier, however disinterested he may be, is not desirable in newly constituted states. On the other hand, I am tired of having it said that I wish to make myself King. In short, I shall always be ready to make the ultimate sacrifice for the liberty of the country, but as in the character of a simple private citizen and in no other.

The inhabitants of the Batavian nation, convinced that their country cannot exist without liberty and that without those efforts that heroic sacrifices of which only free men are capable, it would long ago have succumbed …, consider freedom the supreme good for which they would sacrifice all that they should hold dear.

Freedom—the power to do what we like—a little thing it seems, but it has been bought with a great price.

What I have learned is that freedom is not free.

Money's the cheapest thing. Liberty and freedom is the most expensive.

All the money, all the prestige in the world will never make up for the loss of your freedom.

A people that loves freedom will in the end be free.

Independence, the freedom of a self-governing nation, is in my estimation the highest political good, for which any disadvantage, if need be, and any sacrifice are a cheap price.

Freedom has its risks.

If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the other end fastens itself around your own.

Democracy can only spring from within a nation itself, only from the hearts and minds of its people.

My claim is that we should focus on the values of liberty... If there is not government to insist on those values, then who? ... The single unifying force should be that we govern ourselves.

Truth and freedom, having few lovers, are demanding mistresses.

Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own. America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way.

Freedom is not to be destroyed in the name of love. Freedom is a far higher value than your so-called love.

Liberty cannot be purchased by a wish.

The problem is that we are living now with the consequences of the others people mistake. It would be nice to make our own and learn from them. That is the art of democracy. That is the art of citizenship.