Michael Ignatieff Quotes

Just the concept of personal freedom within a democracy, for instance, is a relatively young idea - only about 300 years old in this country.

Individual liberty, the basic underpinning of American society, requires constant defense against the encroachment of the state.

We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.

Liberty has never come from Government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.

The basis of a democratic state is liberty.

The liberal, emphasizing the civil and property rights of the individual, insists that the individual must remain so supreme as to make the state his servant.

Our founding fathers undertook to create a country based on a notion of individual liberty because they were fleeing from countries in Europe where the government held too much power. They would look at what's happening today in John Ashcroft's Justice Department and say, 'Where have we gone wrong?'

Freedom Party International believes that the purpose of government is to protect every individual's fundamental freedoms, not to restrict them.

The problem with this world is that there isn't enough liberty and freedom.

Free societies are societies in which the right of dissent is protected.

The Constitution gives every American the inalienable right to make a damn fool of himself.

I contend that the strongest of all governments is that which is most free.

The proper balance between individual liberty and central authority is a very ancient problem.

I mean to defend the rights of individuals in a liberal prospect.

The liberty of the individual is a necessary postulate of human progress.

Freedom is our most precious commodity and if we are not eternally vigilant, government will take it all away. Individual freedom demands individual responsibility.

While democracy must have its organization and controls, its vital breath is individual liberty.

Americans take justifiable pride in the freedoms given to them by nature or God and enshrined in the Constitution's Bill of Rights.

Someone who is a good person should have no fear of the government whatsoever.

The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.

Most Americans do not think of liberty and freedom as a set of texts, or a sequence of controversies or a system of abstractions. They understand these ideas in another way, as inherited values that they have learned early in life and deeply believe.

The free society tolerates those within it who would use that freedom to destroy it.

Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is the highest political end.

Men may die, but the fabric of free institutions remain unshaken.

Be most on guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent.