Illumination and The Freedoms We Celebrate

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“But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue?

It is the greatest of all possible evils;

for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.

Those who know what virtuous liberty is,

cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads,

on account of their having

high-sounding words in their mouths.”

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Edmund Burke

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“If ever a time should come,

when vain and aspiring men

shall possess the highest seats in Government,

our country will stand in need

of its experienced patriots

to prevent its ruin.”

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Samuel Adams

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“Liberty without Learning is always in peril

and Learning without Liberty is always in vain.”

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John F. Kennedy

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“They who can give up essential liberty

to obtain a little temporary safety

deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

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Benjamin Franklin

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“Those who deny freedom to others,

deserve it not for themselves”

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Abraham Lincoln

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2018

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“I am an American; free born and free bred,

where I acknowledge no man as my superior,

except for his own worth,

or as my inferior,

except for his own demerit.”

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Theodore Roosevelt

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“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom,

must, like men,

undergo the fatigues of supporting it.”

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Thomas Paine

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Sunday Dinner: Liberty

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“The moment you say that any idea system is sacred,

whether it’s a religious belief system or a secular ideology,

the moment you declare a set of ideas

to be immune from criticism, satire,

derision, or contempt,

freedom of thought becomes impossible.”

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Salman Rushdie

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“If there be time to expose through discussion

the falsehood and fallacies,

to avert the evil

by the processes of education,

the remedy to be applied is more speech,

not enforced silence.”

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Louis D. Brandeis

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“They who can give up essential liberty

to obtain a little temporary safety

deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

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Benjamin Franklin

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Photos by Woodland Gnome 2016

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“We are all like the bright moon,

we still have our darker side.”

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Kahlil Gibran

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