90 Classical Liberalism Quotes
Following is our list of classical liberalism quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about political liberalism.
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Famous Classical Liberalism Quotes
Liberalism is trust of the people tempered by prudence. Conservatism is distrust of the people tempered by fear. — William E. Gladstone
The ideal Government of all reflective men, from Aristotle onward, is one which lets the individual alone - one which barely escapes being no government at all. — H. L. Mencken
Of all the varieties of virtues, liberalism is the most beloved. — Aristotle
Liberalism is a mental disorder. — Michael Savage
Liberal constitutional democracy is supposed to ensure that each citizen is free and equal and protected by basic rights and liberties. — John Rawls
The less government interferes with private pursuits, the better for general prosperity. — Martin Van Buren
Ultraliberalism today translates into a whimpering isolationism in foreign policy, a mulish obstructionism in domestic policy. — Spiro T. Agnew
Individual liberty depends upon keeping government under control. — Ronald Reagan
The individualist… recognizes the limitations of the powers of individual reason and consequently advocates freedom. — Friedrich August von Hayek
America is conservative in fundamental principles... but the principles conserved are liberal and some, indeed, are radical. — Gunnar Myrdal
Government is best which governs least — Thomas Paine
I realized that conservatism was the philosophy that best suited me, with its emphasis on individual liberty, personal responsibility, and merit. — Mark Levin
[E]ach person is to have an equal right to the most extensive basic liberty compatible with a similar liberty for others. — John Rawls
Liberalism is the transformation of mankind into cattle. — Friedrich Nietzsche
Liberals want the government to be your Mommy. Conservatives want government to be your Daddy. Libertarians want it to treat you like an adult. — Andre Marrou
Modern Liberalism Quotes
My family and I were welcomed to Canada more than 40 years ago. We sought and obtained refuge in a liberal, modern, and secular society, and put the ugliness of genocidal religious hate and associated tribalism behind us - or so we thought. — Gad Saad
The liberated woman is not that modern doll who wears make-up and tasteless clothes. ....The liberation woman is a person who believes that she is as human as a man. The liberated woman does not insist on her freedom so as to abuse it. — Ghada al-Samman
Political freedom without economic freedom is almost worthless, and it is because the modern proletariat has the one kind of freedom without the other that its rebellion is now threatening the very structure of the modern world. — Hilaire Belloc
Kelsoism is not accepted by modern scientific economics as a valid and fruitful analysis of the distribution of income but rather it is regarded as an amateurish and cranky fad. — Paul Samuelson
... what I believe to be one of the major tragedies in the Church today. Namely, that evangelicals are biblical, but not contemporary, while liberals are contemporary but not biblical, and almost nobody is building bridges and relating the biblical text to the modern context — John Stott
Modern systematic politics, whether liberal, conservative, radical, or socialist, simply has to be rejected from a standpoint that owes genuine allegiance to the tradition of the virtues; for modern politics itself expresses in its institutional forms a systematic rejection of that tradition — Alasdair MacIntyre
I explain how America hatred and Jew hatred are [INDEMIC] to Modern Liberalism and delve deeper into why it is the otherwise good and decent people will INVARIABLY side with evil over good, wrong over right and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success. — Evan Sayet
Chesterton spoke of 'the modern and morbid habit of always sacrificing the normal to the abnormal.' It would be hard to sum up liberalism for succinctly. — Joseph Sobran
It was the transmutation of the classical liberal intellectual foundation by Christianity that gave modern Europe its impetus and that pushed European accomplishment so far ahead of all other cultures and civilizations around the world. — Charles A. Murray
Liberal education develops a sense of right, duty and honor; and more and more in the modern world, large business rests on rectitude and honor as well as on good judgment. — Charles William Eliot
Political Liberalism Quotes
It is far easier for the proverbial camel to pass through the needle's eye, hump and all, than for an erstwhile colonial administration to give sound and honest counsel of a political nature to its liberated territory. — Kwame Nkrumah
If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at forty, you have no brain. — Winston Churchill
"Freedom" in capitalist countries exists only for those who possess money and who consequently hold power. — Nikita Khrushchev
It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority. — Benjamin Franklin
There is no word more "dangerous" than liberalism, because to oppose it is the new "unforgivable sin." — Fulton J. Sheen
We hear a constant clamor for rights, rights, always rights, but so very little about responsibility. And we have forgotten God. The need now is for selflessness, for a spirit of sacrifice, for a willingness to put aside personal gains for the salvation of the whole Western world. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Democracy has two excesses to avoid: the spirit of inequality, which leads to an aristocracy, or to the government of a single individual; and the spirit of extreme equality, which conducts it to despotism, as the despotism of a single individual finishes by conquest. — Baron de Montesquieu
The tendency of liberals is to create bodies of men and women-of all classes-detached from tradition, alienated from religion, and susceptible to mass suggestion-mob rule. And a mob will be no less a mob if it is well fed, well clothed, well housed, and well disciplined. — T. S. Eliot
There must be no compromise with slavery - none whatever. Nothing is gained, everything is lost, by subordinating principle to expedience. — William Lloyd Garrison
In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat. — Leon Trotsky
Liberal Democracy Quotes
Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
What a liberal really wants is to bring about change that will not in any way endanger his position. — Stokely Carmichael
If Ukraine becomes a pro-American liberal democracy, and a member of NATO, and a member of the E.U., the Russians will consider that categorically unacceptable. — John Mearsheimer
Democracy now means the right of the people to vote for candidates approved by liberal judges. — David O. Sacks
Islam is not a race...Islam is simply a set of beliefs, and it is not 'Islamophobic' to say Islam is incompatible with liberal democracy. — Ayaan Hirsi Ali
The liberals in the Middle East never had a chance. This is not because the people of the region are radical; it is because if you are offered either bread and security or the concept of democracy, the choice is not difficult. — Tim Marshall
I think Russians today have a distorted picture of capitalism, liberal democracy and market economy. — Garry Kasparov
Call it democracy, or call it democratic socialism, but there must be a better distribution of wealth within this country for all God's children. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
If one wishes to forgo the protection afforded by secular pluralism, then perhaps Western liberal democracies is not the right place for you to freely exercise your religion. — Gad Saad
Rather than us exporting liberal democracy to these countries instead we're importing Chinese style authoritarianism. — Konstantin Kisin
Liberal Education Quotes
Women make up one half of society. Our society will remain backward and in chains unless its women are liberated, enlightened and educated. — Saddam Hussein
Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information — Paulo Freire
I do think that a general liberal arts education is very important, particularly in an uncertain changing world — Steve Case
Catholic education aims not only to communicate facts but also to transmit a coherent, comprehensive vision of life, in the conviction that the truths contained in that vision liberate students in the most profound meaning of human freedom. — Pope John Paul II
It's technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing. — Steve Jobs
As the generation of Holocaust survivors and liberators dwindles, the torch of remembrance, of bearing witness, and of education must continue forward. — Dan Gillerman
Never regard study as a duty, but as the enviable opportunity to learn — Albert Einstein
We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forego the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks. — Woodrow Wilson
The point of a liberal arts education is to learn how to think critically and independently, and to develop a sense of empathy for others. — Martha C. Nussbaum
Only a liberal senator from Massachusetts would say that a 49 percent increase in funding for education was not enough. — George W. Bush
Economic Liberalism Quotes
Fascism is definitely and absolutely opposed to the doctrines of liberalism, both in the political and economic sphere. — Benito Mussolini
The reality is the cap-and-trade legislation offered by the Democrats amounts to an economic declaration of war on the Midwest by liberals on Capitol Hill. — Mike Pence
Grouping and mutuality of countries and peoples in the Balkans is the only road that leads to economic, national and political liberation. — Dimitrije Tucovic
Britain is the home of economic freedom, with liberty guaranteed by the independence of our state institutions, and an absence of corruption assured by transparency. — Liz Truss
The liberal ideal is that everyone should have fair access and fair opportunity. This is not equality fo result. Its equality of opportunity. There's a fundamental difference. — Robert Reich
Those who know the normal life of the poor... will realize well enough that without economic security, liberty is not worth having. — Harold Laski
The real struggle between an American government and the people was one of power, which was settled when they designed their Constitution, which conceded the sovereignty of the people when it came to politics, and the sovereignty of the consumer when it came to economics. — Ndabaningi Sithole
Political democracy cannot flourish under all economic conditions. Democracy requires an economic system which supports the political ideals of liberty and equality for all. Men cannot exercise freedom in the political sphere when they are deprived of it in the economic sphere. — Mortimer Adler
The economic egalitarianism of the liberal ideology implies ... the reduction of Westerners to hunger and poverty. — James Burnham
The liberals who demanded equality of taxation on behalf of the poor, for instance, did not imagine that they would obtain progressive taxation to the disadvantage of the well-off, and that they would end up with an arrangement in which taxes are voted by those who do not pay them. — Vilfredo Pareto
People Writing About Classical Liberalism
| Name | Quotes | Likes |
|---|---|---|
 John Rawls |
75 | 760 |
 William E. Gladstone |
60 | 825 |
 H. L. Mencken |
913 | 7279 |
 Aristotle |
1252 | 18854 |
 Michael Savage |
40 | 484 |
 Martin Van Buren |
43 | 678 |
More Classical Liberalism Quotes
The program of liberalism if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production. — Ludwig von Mises
In liberal democracy and anxious anarchy, the traditional classic dance, compact of aristocratic authority and absolute freedom in a necessity of order, has never been so promising as an independent expression as it is today. — Lincoln Kirstein
I wanted to revolutionise habits and contemporary life - to liberate nature, to free it from the authority of old theories and classicism... I felt a tremendous urge to re-create a new world seen through my own eyes, a world which was entirely mine. — Maurice de Vlaminck
According to the classic liberal-arts ideal, learning promises liberation, but it is not liberation from demanding moral ideals and social norms, or liberation to act on our desires-it is, rather, liberation from slavery to those desires, from slavery to self. — Robert P. George
A real gold standard is thoroughly consistent with [classical] liberal principles and I, for one, am entirely in favor of measures promoting its development. — Milton Friedman
With the development of industrial capitalism, a new and unanticipated system of injustice, it is libertarian socialism that has preserved and extended the radical humanist message of the Enlightenment and the classical liberal ideals that were perverted into an ideology to sustain the emerging social order. — Noam Chomsky
The pillars of classical liberalism call for flat taxes, with revenues put to limited uses; strong property rights; and free markets. — Richard Allen Epstein
Securing, not prohibiting, the orderly transfer of wealth from A to B, based on wealth differentials, is the raison d'être of the [New Deal programs]. The contrast between the modern progressive and classical liberal agendas could not be more explicit. — Richard Allen Epstein
I sometimes call my new system 'Italian pagan Catholicism,' but it could more accurately be called 'pragmatic liberalism,' with roots in Enlightenment political philosophy. It is a synthesis of the enduring dual elements in our culture, pagan and Judeo-Christian, Romantic and Classic. — Camille Paglia
It's classic the way liberalism works. If anybody has an advantage over anybody for any reason, it's not permitted. It's not fair. And it's got to be regulated and equalized. And in the process, competition's destroyed and when competition goes, so do consumer advantages. — Rush Limbaugh
There are things about classic liberalism that obviously I'm drawn to and I bet all of you are as well. Those are things like liberty, freedom, the Bill of Rights. But the reason that I reject the label is that I grew up cutting my teeth against the liberals. — Bill Ayers
One should study the Bible alongside other intellectual traditions - such as British constitutionalism, Enlightenment liberalism, and classical republicanism - in order to truly understand the American founding. — Daniel L Dreisbach
I felt that we could hardly improve on the conception of the university expressed by one of the founders of the modern system, Wilhelm von Humboldt, also one of the founders of classical liberalism. That seems to me true today as well, though ideals of course have to be adapted to changing circumstances. — Noam Chomsky
I have been a libertarian in my past but now I consider myself a classical liberal. — Charles Koch
A classical liberal is someone who wants a society that maximizes peace, civility, tolerance, and well-being for everyone. One that opens opportunities for everyone to advance themselves. — Charles Koch
Thomas Jefferson, the leading Enlightenment figure in the United States, along with Benjamin Franklin, who took exactly the same view, argued that dependence will lead to "subservience and venality", and will "suffocate the germs of virtue". And remember, by dependence he meant wage labor, which was considered an abomination under classical liberal principles. — Noam Chomsky
... liberal intellectualstend to have a classical theory of politics, in which the state has a monopoly of power; hoping thatthose in positions of authority may prove to be enlightened men, wielding power justly, they are natural, if cautious, allies of the "establishment. — Susan Sontag
A classic liberal is more like a libertarian. I'm sorry. Classic liberal, actually, from the 1800s has a totally different meaning than a liberal who is [modern] classic. — Glenn Beck
The [classical] liberal, of course, does not deny that there are some superior people -- he is not an egalitarian -- but he denies that anyone has authority to decide who these superior people are. — Friedrich August von Hayek
To view an object in the proper light we must stand away from it. The study of the classical literatures gives the aloofness which cultivates insight. In learning to live with peoples and civilizations that have long ceased to be alive, we gain a vantage point, acquire an enlargement and elevation of thought, which enable us to study with a more impartial and liberal mind the condition of the society around us. — John Lancaster Spalding
Against what is stupid, nonsensical, erroneous, and evil, [classical] liberalism fights with the weapons of the mind, and not with brute force and repression. — Ludwig von Mises
I didn't want to do film or commercials or television. That was cheap. That was selling out. I was the classic liberal, left-wing, 'Theater is going to change the world' kind of person. You know, very, very boring. — Stephen Moyer
The libertarian creed...offers the fulfillment of the best of the American past along with the promise of a far better future. Libertarians are squarely in the great classical liberal tradition that built the United States and bestowed on us the American heritage of individual liberty, a peaceful foreign policy, minimal government, and a free-market economy. — Murray Rothbard
So much of liberalism in its classical sense is taken for granted in the west today and even disrespected. We take freedom for granted, and because of this we don't understand how incredibly vulnerable it is. — Niall Ferguson
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