“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” Edmund Burke

“A core insight of liberalism is that, if people are to live together well in conditions of freedom, power always needs to be dispersed, cross-examined and controlled.” Timothy Garton Ash

“a poor society cannot be too poor to find a right order of life, nor a rich society too rich to have need to seek it” Richard Tawney

“We believe in the intrinsic value of every human being, and we are deeply optimistic about people. We believe that our role – and the role of government – is to ensure they have the power and freedom to thrive and fulfil their potential.” Leading the Way policy review 2025

“We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.” Ursula Le Guin

Something for all of us to remind ourselves of frequently: “I am made unlike anyone I have ever met; I will even venture to say that I am like no one in the whole world. I may be no better, but I am different.” Rousseau

“Reason... teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions.” Locke

“Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.” Milton

“Under whatever political institutions we live, there is a circle around every individual human being which no government be it that of the one, the few or the many, ought to be permitted to overstep.” John Stuart Mill.

"Liberalism properly conceived is a repository of political sense and practical problem solving." Adrian Wooldridge

whenever the use of the market might undermine social liberalism – namely a society that protects effective freedom for all … – the market has to give way. The political goals of liberalism are always more important than any particular method of achieving them.” David Howarth

“A liberal is one who seeks to secure for everyone the same rights, political, social or religious, which he claims for himself.” George Jacob Holyoake 1886

“Amid all differences and conflicts one idea is common to the modern democratic movement, whether it takes the shape of revolution or reform, of Liberalism or Socialism. The political order must conform to the ethical ideal of what is just.” L. T. Hobhouse 1912

“A Liberal government must not be frightened to take positive action to promote Liberal conditions. Defence of the weak, help for the poor, eradication of evils, guardianship of scarce resources, maintenance of the coherence of society, .” Jo Grimond

“The poorest he that is in England hath a life to live as the greatest he” Colonel Thomas Rainsborough, Putney Debates, 1647

Ukrainians are reminding us that democracy survives only if people are willing to sacrifice for it." Robert Reich

“all people have an equal right to take part in the process by which decisions that affect their lives are taken. The greatest threat to that right is the concentration of power. Democracy is dependent as much on the... istribution and control of power as it is upon the ballot.” Greaves and Lishman

“Be inspired with the belief that life is a great and noble calling, not a mean and grovelling thing that we are to shuffle through as best we can, but an elevated and lofty destiny.” William Gladstone

"I have never advocated or asked for special rights or special sympathy for working people. What I stand for is equal rights for all people.” Henry George

"The cause of liberty becomes a mockery if the price to be paid is the wholesale destruction of those who are to enjoy liberty." Mahatma Gandhi

“I am a Liberal, because Liberalism seems to me to mean faith in the people and confidence that they will manage their own affairs far better than those affairs are likely to be managed for them by others.” Millicent Fawcett

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Martin Luther King 1963

“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.” John Kennedy

“Make no mistake – Liberalism and Fundamentalism are fearsome enemies. As Liberals, we do not ask – nor necessarily want – people to be like us. We ask only for the freedom to be ourselves. And in return to guarantee others that self-same freedom.” Charles Kennedy

“...a curious assumption that individual liberty means the withdrawal of the state, and that taxation is a form of state control. The opposite should be the case. Taxation, efficiently gathered and efficiently spent, is not a curb on personal freedom; it is the means to achieve it.” Charles Kennedy

“The idea is quite unfounded that on entering into society we give up any natural rights. No man has a natural right to commit aggression on the equal rights of another, and this is all from which the law ought to restrain him.”Thomas Jefferson 1816

Towards the goal of a more equal society we must never waver. Towards the goal or a more green and sustainable society we must never waver. Towards the goal of global peace and security we must never waver. Towards the goal of full electoral and political reform we must never waver.” Simon Hughes

“The struggle for liberty is also, when pushed through, a struggle for equality. Freedom to choose an occupation... means equality for others in the opportunities for following such an occupation. This ..leads Liberalism to support a national system of free education.” L. T. Hobhouse 1911

"The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom." Hegel 1832

“You have said that you want from the Liberals a policy far more radical than socialism. I agree entirely and it wants to be an immediate programme.” Jo Grimond to Sir William Beveridge 1944

“The great fact is that liberty is a great and precious gift of God, and that human excellence cannot grow up in a nation without it.” William Gladstone

“Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt” God Exodus 23:9

“[The Liberal Democrats] are unique in devising a political system which links the concept of fairness to an ideology which say not that “Jack is as good as his master” but rather “Jack should be his own master”. Richard Kemp

“Liberals must ever insist that each enlargement of the authority and functions of the State must justify itself as an enlargement of personal liberty, interfering with individuals only in order to set free new and larger opportunities.” J. A. Hobson 1909

“An ideal is as necessary to the reformer as the established fact is to the conservative… A progressive movement … must have an ideal, and an ethical idea for the future must be in so far abstract as it is not yet realised and embodied in social institutions.” L. T. Hobhouse. 1898

No distinction can be made between the right to life and the right to liberty, for there can be no right to mere life – no right to life on the part of a being that has not also the right to direct the life according to the motion of his own will. T. H. Green

“Freedom is not something that happens by accident. It happens by intervention or by refereeing the situation. And of course the greatest block to anybody’s freedom normally is poverty and a lack of resources.” Tim Farron

“If you cannot be free, be as free as you can.” Emerson

“Democracy … is not about the emergence of some unified view from “the people”, but is about organising conflict and living with conflict.” Ralf Dahrendorf

“[T]he greatest obstacles of all to the creation of a truly liberal society are the forces of cynicism, fatalism and despair. We need to meet those forces head on in a crusading spirit and with a conviction of the utter worth of human life and endeavour.” Ian Bradley

“The outstanding merit of Liberalism as a political creed – that it stands for the general interest – means that the Liberal party, unlike both its rivals, cannot count on automatic support from any sectional interest. It must build its own organisation for itself and its ideals.” William Beveridge

“Those who ever valued liberty for its own sake believed that to be free to choose and not to be chosen for, is an inalienable ingredient in what makes human beings human.” Isaiah Berlin

The first concern of our party must still be liberty – our challenge in the past has been how to enhance liberty whilst creating a just society – our new challenge comes from adding the words “and a safe environment too”. Paddy Ashdown

To celebrate the opening of the Land Registry www.theguardian.com/environment/... The land, the land, ‘twas god who made the land The land, the land the ground on which we stand Why should we be beggars with the ballot in our hand God made the land for the people

“Liberalism is a progressive force, and as it advances it learns, finding at every turn of the road new vistas of challenge and opportunity.” Elliott Dodds

“It is right that we should celebrate British citizenship, and [its] rights and responsibilities. If we built active community participation in our democratic process, with a sense of united community, ethnicity and multiculturalism would be less contentious.” Navnit Dholakia

“There is no state of affairs in which liberalism has been completely realised. Liberalism is forever process, the process by which human beings explore new opportunities for more people.” Ralf Dahrendorf

“Liberty of Conscience and Liberty of the Subject, - two as glorious things to be contended for, as any that God hath given us.” Oliver Cromwell

“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it at all.” Noam Chomsky

“The politics of the future are social politics and the problem is still how to secure the greatest happiness ... especially of those whom all previous legislation and reform seem to have left ... where they were before.” Joseph Chamberlain, discussing excluded people back in the nineteenth century