Freedom is a very dangerous thing. We ration it very closely.

Liberty is more precious than money or office; and we should be vigilant lest we purchase wealth or place at the price of inner freedom.

The only liberty that is valuable is a liberty connected with order; that not only exists along with order and virtue, but which cannot exist at all without them. It inheres in good and steady government, as in its substance and vital principle.

We know how precious freedom is and how painful it is to be deprived of it.

The price you must pay for the enjoyment of your own liberty is the recognition that other people, especially people with whom you may not like to identify, have an equal claim to the same liberty. America requires an allegiance to the stern principle of liberty. This is the reason gay rights matter to Americans generally and not just to lesbians and gay men. Liberty, unlike nationality, cannot be safely restricted. Restriction turns liberty into privilege, and no American's freedom is safe if individual liberty changes from a right rooted in nature to a privilege rooted in custom.

Free choice is a very precious thing.

Liberty is only valued when it is threatened, therefore it is the threat that highlights the value. We should be grateful to the Nadir, since they heighten the value of our liberty.

Dear friends, liberty is the most precious of gifts. My generation never had to fight for this freedom, it was offered to us on a silver platter, by people who fought for it with their lives. All throughout Europe American cemeteries remind us of the young boys who never made it home, and whose memory we cherish. My generation does not own this freedom; we are merely its custodians. We can only hand over this hard won liberty to Europe’s children in the same state in which it was offered to us. We cannot strike a deal with mullahs and imams. Future generations would never forgive us. We cannot squander our liberties. We simply do not have the right to do so.

Freedom is a rare and delicate plant. Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power.

Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint.

Liberty depends on self-restraint. Freedom is freedom only when controlled and limited.

Liberty is rendered even more precious by the recollection of servitude.

Freedom is more precious than the gift that makes us lose it.

Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.