Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [561-580] of 1002 Responsibility quotesResponsibility QuotesResponsibility Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes The unexamined life, said Socrates, is unfit to be lived by man. This is the virtue of liberty, and the ground on which we may justify our belief in it, that it tolerates error in order to serve truth.~ Walter Lippmann While the right to talk may be the beginning of freedom, the necessity of listening is what makes that right important.~ Walter Lippmann [F]or nothing is to be accounted hostile force, but where it leaves not the remedy of such an appeal; and it is such force alone, that puts him that uses it into a state of war, and makes it lawful to resist him. A man with a sword in his hand demands my purse in the high-way, when perhaps I have not twelve pence in my pocket: this man I may lawfully kill. To another I deliver 100 pounds to hold only whilst I alight, which he refuses to restore me, when I am got up again, but draws his sword to defend the possession of it by force, if I endeavour to retake it. The mischief this man does me is a hundred, or possibly a thousand times more than the other perhaps intended me (whom I killed before he really did me any); and yet I might lawfully kill the one, and cannot so much as hurt the other lawfully. The reason whereof is plain; because the one using force, which threatened my life, I could not have time to appeal to the law to secure it: and when it was gone, it was too late to appeal. The law could not restore life to my dead carcass: the loss was irreparable; which to prevent, the law of nature gave me a right to destroy him, who had put himself into a state of war with me, and threatened my destruction. But in the other case, my life not being in danger, I may have the benefit of appealing to the law, and have reparation for my 100 pounds that way.~ John Locke If the innocent honest Man must quietly quit all he has for Peace sake, to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be considered what kind of Peace there will be in the World, which consists only in Violence and Rapine; and which is to be maintained only for the benefit of Robbers and Oppressors.~ John Locke The Care therefore of every man's Soul belongs unto himself, and is to be left unto himself. But what if he neglect the Care of his Soul? I answer, What if he neglects the Care of his Health, or of his Estate, which things are nearlier related to the Government of the Magistrate than the other? Will the magistrate provide by an express Law, That such an one shall not become poor or sick? Laws provide, as much as is possible, that the Goods and Health of Subjects be not injured by the Fraud and Violence of others; they do not guard them from the Negligence or Ill-husbandry of the Possessors themselves.~ John Locke The people cannot delegate to government the power to do anything which would be unlawful for them to do themselves.~ John Locke Any single man must judge for himself whether circumstances warrant obedience or resistance to the commands of the civil magistrate; we are all qualified, entitled, and morally obliged to evaluate the conduct of our rulers. This political judgment, moreover, is not simply or primarily a right, but like self-preservation, a duty to God. As such it is a judgment that men cannot part with according to the God of Nature. It is the first and foremost of our inalienable rights without which we can preserve no other.~ John Locke [E]very Man has a Property in his own Person. This no Body has any Right to but himself. The Labour of his Body, and the Work of his Hands, we may say, are properly his. The great and chief end therefore, of Mens uniting into Commonwealths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property.~ John Locke Beware how you trifle with your marvelous inheritance, this great land of ordered liberty, for if we stumble and fall, freedom and civilization everywhere will go down in ruin.~ Henry Cabot Lodge Democracy is like a raft. It won't sink, but you'll always have your feet wet.~ Russell Long All are architects of Fate, Working in these walls of Time; some with massive deeds and great, Some with ornaments of rhyme.~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow True freedom is to share All the chains our brothers wear And, with heart and hand, to be Earnest to make others free.~ James Russell Lowell And I honor the man who is willing to sink Half his present repute for the freedom to think And, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak Will risk t’ other half for the freedom to speak.~ James Russell Lowell And I honor the man who is willing to sink half his present repute for the freedom to think, and, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak, Will risk t' other half for the freedom to speak.~ James Russell Lowell If we are ever in doubt about what to do, it is a good rule to ask ourselves what we shall wish on the morrow that we had done.~ John Lubbock Within seven centuries, [the ancient Greeks] invented for itself, epic, elegy, lyric, tragedy, novel, democratic government, political and economic science, history, geography, philosophy, physics and biology; and made revolutionary advances in architecture, sculpture, painting, music, oratory, mathematics, astronomy, medicine, anatomy, engineering, law and war... a stupendous feat for whose most brilliant state Attica was the size of Hertfordshire, with a free population (including children) of perhaps 160,000.~ F. J. Lucas There is nothing in the universe that I fear, but that I shall not know all my duty, or shall fail to do it.~ Mary Lyon To argue against any breach of liberty from the ill use that may be made of it, is to argue against liberty itself, since all is capable of being abused.~ Lord George Lyttleton No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.~ General Douglas MacArthur And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best?~ Thomas Babington Macaulay Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print