There are times we don't want to hear about the need to temper our best hopes in order to achieve our most vital security. But we still need to do it. Before we can triumph, we must survive. Before liberty can prevail, the possibility of liberty must be preserved.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Security often requires tempering hopes before liberty can be preserved.
- In plain terms
- Survival must come before triumph or liberty.
- What can you take from it?
- Prioritize survival to preserve future liberty.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Can liberty exist without security?
- When is compromise necessary?
Another view
Tempering hopes may dampen necessary revolutionary spirit.
More from Alan Keyes
There's not a single thing on offer in this all-too-temporary world for which you should ever sell your soul.
Permalink to quote #9 Our success or failure is not in the hands of our leaders. It is in our hands.
Permalink to quote #11 The First Amendment isn't about free thought and free opinion and free belief. The First Amendment is about free exercise--the carrying into practice of religi…
Permalink to quote #8
Related quotes
Storm clouds of terror and dictatorship are gathering over the whole country... They must not be allowed to bring eternal night.
Boris YeltsinBoris Yeltsin quote #3 They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin FranklinBenjamin Franklin quote #6 At home, the public has come to accept torture as a legitimate instrument of government, something that the Founding Fathers would have been aghast at. We have…
Andrew SullivanAndrew Sullivan quote #6