P. D. James Quotes

The chief difference [between totalitarian and free countries] is that only the totalitarians appear clearly to know how they want to achieve that result, while the free world has only its past achievements to show, being by its very nature unable to offer any detailed "plan" for further growth.

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.

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 all men are...hastening to be slaves or tyrants we make Liberalism the prime bogey.

You can have no wise laws nor free enforcement of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people -- and, alas, their folly with it. But if there is freedom, folly will die of its own poison, and the wisdom will survive.

Free speech exercised both individually and through a free press, is a necessity in any country where people are themselves free.

There is no question that if one were to ask whether we Americans are moving towards more liberty or more government control over our lives, the answer would unambiguously be the latter - more government control over our lives. We might have reached a point where the trend is irreversible and that is a true tragedy for if liberty is lost in America, it will be lost for all times and all places.

Fascism is more of a natural state than democracy. To assume blithely that we can export democracy into any country we choose can serve paradoxically to encourage more fascism at home and abroad. Democracy is a state of grace that is attained only by those countries who have a host of individuals not only ready to enjoy freedom but to undergo the heavy labor of maintaining it.

It seems self-evident that we should want people to be free, to be able to play an active part in making decisions about matters of concern to them, to the largest possible extent.

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

We're seeing the sort of liberal phenomenon of activists that are speaking out. And they have every right to do so. I think we need to respect that in this country. It's just part of the democratic process.

Here is the crisis of the times as I see it: We talk about problems, issues, policies, but we don't talk about what democracy means - what it bestows on us - the revolutionary idea that it isn't just about the means of governance but the means of dignifying people so they become fully free to claim their moral and political agency.

I can almost see what Gabriel meant when he asked, 'What has the free world got that you can’t get here?' Almost. Freedom, Gabriel. That’s what you can’t get here.

To be corrupted by totalitarianism, one does not have to live in a totalitarian country.

Liberty, as we all know, cannot flourish in a country that is permanently on a war footing, or even a near war footing. Permanent crisis justifies permanent control of everybody and everything by the agencies of central government.

People are going to do stupid things, but you don't take away the freedom because somebody makes a stupid decision.

Law is order in liberty, and without order liberty is social chaos.

It is not enough that France should be regarded as a country which enjoys the remains of a freedom acquired long ago. If she is still to count in the world--and if she does not intend to, she may as well perish--she must be seen by her own citizens and by all men as an ever-flowing source of liberty. There must not be a single genuine lover of freedom in the whole world who can have a valid reason for hating France.

This country to-day [is] the last stronghold of freedom, standing like a rock in a tide that is threatened to submerge the world.

A free government with an uncontrolled power of military conscription is the most ridiculous and abominable contradiction and nonsense that ever entered into the heads of men.

It is unthinkable to allow complete strangers, whether individually or collectively as state legislators or others in government, to make such personal decisions for someone else.

A country whose population has been trained to accept the government's word and to shun those who question it is a country without liberty in its future.

To blend, without coercion, the individual good and the common good is the essence of citizenship in a free country.

If liberty is worth keeping and free representative government worth saving, we must stand for all American fundamentals-not some, but all. All are woven into the great fabric of our national well-being. We cannot hold fast to some only, and abandon others that, for the moment, we find inconvenient. If one American fundamental is prostrated, others in the end will surely fall.

Freedom of press and freedom of speech: What a blessing for a country while in the hands of honest, patriotic men; what a curse if in the hands of designing demagogues.