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Central authority is bad. The bias should be for freedom. And without a central authority, there are lots of little authorities, and we learn which ones to trust.

The ancients understood the regulation of power better than the regulation of liberty.

Liberty is the proper end and object of authority, and cannot subsist without it; and it is liberty to that which is good, just, and honest.

As a result of my study, I came to the conclusion that a common supreme authority was undesirable.

The primary problem in many modernizing societies is not liberty but the creation of a legitimate public order. Men may, of course, have order without liberty, but they cannot have liberty without order.

By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes is his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion.

There is no such thing as liberty. You only change one sort of domination for another. All we can do is to choose our master.

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

If you cannot reconcile the difference between the elite that stay behind the scene and the right of the people, that's going to be forever chaos. It's time to compromise, to allow more democracy. Those who are stay behind the scenes must hand off and observe the law.

Balancing the common good with the freedom and liberty to exercise that individuality has been and remains a challenge for those committed to democracy while understanding that the polis ensures our participation and therefore our citizenship.