John Adams Quotes on Liberty & Freedom (12 Quotes)

When people talk of the freedom of writing, speaking or thinking I cannot choose but laugh. No such thing ever existed. No such thing now exists; but I hope it will exist. But it must be hundreds of years after you and I shall write and speak no more.

Liberty cannot be preserved without general knowledge among the people.

Statesmen...may plan and speculate for Liberty, but it is Religion and Morality alone, which can establish the Principles upon which Freedom can securely stand.... The only foundation of a free Constitution, is pure Virtue, and if this cannot be inspired into our People, in a greater Measure, than they have it now, They may change their Rulers, and the forms of Government, but they will not obtain a lasting Liberty.

I would define liberty to be a power to do as we would be done by. The definition of liberty to be the power of doing whatever the law permits, meaning the civil laws, does not seem satisfactory.

Happiness, whether in despotism or democracy, whether in slavery or liberty, can never be found without virtue

Thomas Jefferson still survives ... (Actually, Jefferson had died earlier that same day, Independence Day, July 4, 1826)

Liberty, according to my metaphysics is a self-determining power in an intellectual agent. It implies thought and choice and power.

There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.

Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.

The aspiring, noble principle founded in benevolence, and cherished by knowledge I mean the love of power, which has been so often the cause of slavery, has, whenever freedom has existed, been the cause of freedom

The way to secure liberty is to place it in the people's hands, that is, to give them the power at all times to defend it in the legislature and in the courts of justice

The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it.