Freedom Quotes

It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic nation that it have free and independent labor unions.

In vain they seek to hide behind the flag and the Constitution. In their blindness they forget what the flag and the Constitution stand for. Now, as always, they stand for democracy, not tyranny; for freedom, not subjection; and against a dictatorship by mob rule and the over-privileged alike.

We, too, born to freedom, and believing in freedom, are willing to fight to maintain freedom. We, and all others who believe as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.

Liberty requires opportunity to make a living-a living decent according to the standard of the time, a living which gives a man not only enough to live by, but something to live for.

They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate.

Necessitous men are not free men.

Every man has a right to life, and this means that he has also a right to make a comfortable living.

If by democratic methods people get a government strong enough to protect them from fear and starvation, their democracy succeeds; but if they do not, they grow impatient.

I can't believe that we can fight a war against fascist slavery, and at the same time not work to free people all over the world from a backward colonial policy? The peace cannot include any continued despotism ... Equality of peoples involves the utmost freedom of competitive trade.

Upon our naval and air patrol - now operating in large number over a vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean - falls the duty of maintaining the American policy of freedom of the seas.

The Government of Italy has now chosen to preserve what it terms its 'freedom of action' and to fulfill what it states are its promises to Germany.

In every country conquered by the Nazis and the Fascists, or the Japanese militarists, the people have been reduced to the status of slaves or chattels. It is our determination to restore these conquered peoples to the dignity of human beings, masters of their own fate, entitled to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. We have started to make good on that promise.

Lead us to the saving of our country, and with our sister Nations into a world unity that will spell a sure peace a peace invulnerable to the schemings of unworthy men. And a peace that will let all of men live in freedom, reaping the just rewards of their honest toil.

This Republic had its beginning, and grew to its present strength, under the protection of certain inalienable political rights-among them the right of free speech, free press, free worship, trial by jury, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures. They were our rights to life and liberty.

We have come to a clear realization of the fact that true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.

There are men who doubt this. There are men who believe that democracy, as a form of Government and a frame of life, is limited or measured by a kind of mystical and artificial fate - that, for some unexplained reason, tyranny and slavery have become the surging wave of the future - and that freedom is an ebbing tide. But we Americans know that this is not true.

For action has been taken within the three-way framework of the Constitution of the United States. The coordinate branches of the Government continue freely to function. The Bill of Rights remains inviolate. The freedom of elections is wholly maintained.

Democracy...We know it cannot die - because it is built on the unhampered initiative of individual men and women joined together in a common enterprise - an enterprise undertaken and carried through by the free expression of a free majority.

America has been the New World in all tongues, to all peoples, not because this continent was a new-found land, but because all those who came here believed they could create upon this continent a new life - a life that should be new in freedom.

This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women; and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God.