Gordon Seekings, Webmaster 4 Feb 2008. "Yes - this is one of the pages that at least one Conservative has put on her blog that she thinks is a strange page for a Lib Dem website. However, as we think that free speech and education is an important matter, we thought the contents may be of interest whether you agree with the sentiments expressed by the quoted people or not. May I particularly draw your attention to the quotes from John Stuart Mill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Gladstone below."

Preamble to the Liberal Democrats Federal Constitution: "The Liberal Democrats exist to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the findamental values of liberty, equality and community and in which no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity"

John Stuart Mill: "Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives."

Franklin D. Roosevelt: "A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned how to walk forward."

Gladstone: "Liberalism is trust of the people, tempered by prudence; Conservatism is distrust of the people, tempered by fear."

USA President John F. Kennedy: "....if by a liberal they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people - their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, their civil liberties....if that is what they mean by a liberal then I am proud to be a liberal."

Eric Idle: "At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount of comedy that is permitted, and clearly a healthy society permits more satirical comment than a repressive, so that if comedy is to function in some way as a safety release then it must obviously deal with these taboo areas. This is part of the responsibility we accord our licensed jesters, that nothing be excused the searching light of comedy. If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted."

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche: "Here the ways of men part; if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire."

Emile Capouya: "Governments will always misuse the machinery of the law as far as the state of public opinion permits."

Jose Ortega y Gasset: "Liberalism is the supreme form of generosity; it is the right which the majority concedes to minorities and hence it is the noblest cry that has ever resounded on this planet."

Walter Lippmann: "The war for liberty never ends. One day liberty has to be defended against the power of wealth, on another day against the intrigues of politicians, on another against the dead hand of bureaucrats, on another against the patrioter and the militarist, on another against the profiteer, and then against the hysteria and the passions of the mobs, against obscurantism and stupidity, against the criminal and against the overrighteous. In this campaign every civilized man is enlisted till he dies, and he only has known the full joy of living who somewhere and at some time has struck a decisive blow for the freedom of the human spirit."

Ayn Rand: "Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)."

Henry David Thoreau: "Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."

William Proxmire: "Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous."

Eugene Victor Debs - From an address on Industrial Unionism delivered at Grand Central Palace, New York City, December 18 1905: "Too long have the workers of the world waited for some Moses to lead them out of bondage. I would not lead you out if I could; for if you could be led out, you could be led back again. I would have you make up your minds there is nothing that you cannot do for yourselves."

Aldous Huxley. "So long as men worship the Caesars and Napoleons, Caesars and Napoleons will duly rise and make them miserable."

William Blake: "When I tell the truth, it is not for the sake of convincing those who do not know it, but for the sake of defending those that do."

James Anthony Froude (1818-1894) author and historian: "A centralised democracy may be as tyrannical as an absolute monarch; and if the vigour of the nation is to continue unimpaired, each individual, each family, each district, must preserve as far as possible its independence, its self-completeness, its powers and its privilege to manage its own affairs and think its own thoughts."

James Bovard - 1994: "Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner."

Samuel Adams: "It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds."

Albert Einstein: "A human being is a part of the whole, called by us, 'Universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest -- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security."

Angelica Grimke: "The doctrine of blind obedience and unqualified submission to any human power, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is the doctrine of despotism, and ought to have no place among Republicans and Christians."