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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  Benjamin Franklin (1706–90)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 1056
AUTHOR: Benjamin Franklin (1706–90)
QUOTATION: Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.
ATTRIBUTION: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Pennsylvania Assembly: Reply to the Governor, November 11, 1755.—The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, ed. Leonard W. Labaree, vol. 6, p. 242 (1963).

This quotation, slightly altered, is inscribed on a plaque in the stairwell of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
SUBJECTS: Liberty