Time perhaps to be reminded of some ancient truths: “The remedy ... in our view is not concentration in the hands of the state but the diffusion of ownership throughout the community. We stand not for public ownership but for popular ownership. Liberal Party, Britain’s Industrial Future 1928

“Liberalism inherently believes that almost everyone has the capacity to run their own lives and should be given the freedom to do it. It also believes that, given the freedom, most people will act responsibly and not become too greedy and try to take out more than their due.” Richard Kemp

Something very much for our time: “I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are the dependence for continued freedom.” Thomas Jefferson 1816

“Bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal laws must protect, and to violate would be oppression.” Thomas Jefferson 1801

“Ultimately one can divide political ideologies into those that appeal to fantasies of control and those that appeal to fantasies of liberation... Liberalism... appeals to those who wish themselves and others to be free.” David Howarth

“Liberalism is the belief that society can safely be founded on [the] power of personality, that it is only on this foundation that a true community can be rebuilt, and that its foundations are so deep... that there is no limit that we can place on the extent of the building.” L. T. Hobhouse 1911

Said in 1963, but even more true in the age of social media: “The need for publicity corrupts as much or more than the need for power.” Jo Grimond

“What do I understand by the Liberal principle? I understand, in the main, it is a principle of trust in the people only qualified by prudence. By the principle which is opposed to the Liberal principle, I understand mistrust of the people, only qualified by fear.” William Gladstone

“Liberty is liberty, not equality or fairness or justice or human happiness or a quiet conscience.” Isaiah Berlin

“Take note that England is not a Free people, till the Poor that have no Land, have a free allowance to dig and labour the Commons, and so live as Comfortably as the Landlords that live in their Inclosures.” The Digger Manifesto

“One of the great tragedies of man’s long trek along the highway of history has been the limiting of neighbourly concern to tribe, race, class or nation.” Martin Luther King 1963

“Our modern legislation then with reference to labour, and education, and health, ... is justified on the ground that it is the business of the state, ... to maintain the conditions without which a free exercise of the human faculties is impossible.” T H Green

“My politics are to be those politics of liberation. I am anxious to liberate our people – those whom I can help – in little ways as we are allowed to do, from enforced idleness, unjustified discrimination and harmful dogma.” Simon Hughes

“The very aim and end of our institutions is just this: that we may think what we like and say what we think.” Oliver Wendell Holmes 1860

"The Liberals have kept public interest alive since 1945 in the critical question of the place of the individual in an increasingly complex society." The Guardian 1964

“It has been said that Socialism is about Equality. If you ask for an equivalent short had description of Liberalism I should say that it is about Freedom and Participation.” Jo Grimond

Still true: “We are part of the community of Europe and must do our duty as such.” William Gladstone

“Liberty of Conscience is a natural right; and he that would have it, ought to give it.” Oliver Cromwell

“The ultimate aims of Liberalism are unchanged – equal enjoyment of all essential liberties secured by the rule of law, material progress for the sake of increasing spiritual life, toleration for variety of opinion,... Liberalism is a faith, not a formula.” William Beveridge

“A Liberal is a man or a woman or a child who looks forward to a better day, a more tranquil night, and a bright, infinite future.” Leonard Bernstein

More relevant today than ever. “Our liberalism means we stand up to bullies, everywhere.” Conrad Russell

“To take the word society first. It emphasises the individual, but the individual in conjunction with other men and women.” Jo Grimond

“Liberalism ...springs from the philosophy of Locke and Hume. A philosophy based on the individual and their experience. A philosophy profoundly suspicious of deities, innate ideas and dogma. A philosophy which finds that all our knowledge comes from experience.” Jo Grimond

“How do you get to be a Liberal Democrat MP? It’s not as if you can be flown into a safe seat – because there aren’t any. So how do you become one? By being a nutter and working your socks off and doing the traditional Liberal Democrat grass roots building up a seat from nothing process.” Tim Farron

“But the basis of my Liberalism is that… I am a lover of liberty; and that liberty which I value for myself, I value for every human being in proportion to their means and opportunities.” William Gladstone

"In the end more than they wanted freedom, they wanted security. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free." Edward Gibbon

“Liberals remain steadfast because they know in their very bones that the institutions of freedom would suffer untold damage if their organisations were allowed to collapse.” Philip Fothergill

“I prefer to think of myself as a radical liberal for whom the social entitlements of citizenship are as important a condition of progress as the opportunities for choice which require entrepreneurial initiative and an innovative spirit.” Ralf Dahrendorf

“The repeal of the corn laws will be carried when people understand it. And when you understand it, if you are an honest person, you will feel it, if you feel it, at least as I have, you will not be able to be quiet without doing something to put down this great injustice.” Richard Cobden

"The great problem of our civilisation is still unsolved. We have to account for and to grapple with the mass of misery and destitution in our midst, co-existent as it is with the evidence of abundant wealth and teeming prosperity." Joseph Chamberlain. Still the same problem today.