Friday 9 August 2013

Independence Day

Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.  ~Thomas Paine


He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself.  ~Thomas Paine


This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.  ~Elmer Davis


The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation.  ~Woodrow Wilson


Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have.  ~Harry Emerson Fosdick


Let freedom never perish in your hands.  ~Joseph Addison


You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness.  You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.  ~Erma Bombeck


Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.  ~Dwight D. Eisenhower


In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.  ~Franklin D. Roosevelt


A statistician made a few calculations and discovered that since the birth of our nation more lives had been lost in celebrating independence than in winning it.  ~Curtis Billings


Freedom's natal day is here.
Fire the guns and shout for freedom,
See the flag above unfurled!
Hail the stars and stripes forever,
Dearest flag in all the world.
~Florence A. Jones


This, then, is the state of the union:  free and restless, growing and full of hope.  So it was in the beginning.  So it shall always be, while God is willing, and we are strong enough to keep the faith.  ~Lyndon B. Johnson


For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?  ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


That which distinguishes this day from all others is that then both orators and artillerymen shoot blank cartridges.  ~John Burroughs, Journal


Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.  ~Louis D. Brandeis


Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.  ~Albert Camus


It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you.  ~Author unknown, sometimes attributed to M. Grundler


Liberty is the breath of life to nations.  ~George Bernard Shaw


America is much more than a geographical fact.  It is a political and moral fact - the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality.  ~Adlai Stevenson


May the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country!  ~Daniel Webster


We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls.  ~Robert J. McCracken


If our country is worth dying for in time of war let us resolve that it is truly worth living for in time of peace.  ~Hamilton Fish


I prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery.  ~Author Unknown


I love my freedom.  I love my America.  ~Jessi Lane Adams


Without freedom, no one really has a name.  ~Milton Acorda


Where liberty dwells, there is my country.  ~Benjamin Franklin


All we have of freedom, all we use or know -
This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.
~Rudyard Kipling, The Old Issue, 1899


Liberty means responsibility.  That is why most men dread it.  ~George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, "Maxims: Liberty and Equality," 1905


It is the love of country that has lighted and that keeps glowing the holy fire of patriotism.  ~J. Horace McFarland


The winds that blow through the wide sky in these mounts, the winds that sweep from Canada to Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic - have always blown on free men.  ~Franklin D. Roosevelt


I wish that every human life might be pure transparent freedom.  ~Simone de Beauvoir


The United States is the only country with a known birthday.  ~James G. Blaine


Many politicians are in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom.  The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim.  ~Thomas Macaulay


Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all!
By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.
~John Dickinson


We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.  ~William Faulkner


My God!  How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!  ~Thomas Jefferson


What is the essence of America?  Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom "to" and freedom "from."  ~Marilyn vos Savant, in Parade


How often we fail to realize our good fortune in living in a country where happiness is more than a lack of tragedy.  ~Paul Sweeney


From every mountain side
Let Freedom ring.
~Samuel F. Smith, "America"


We need an America with the wisdom of experience.  But we must not let America grow old in spirit.  ~Hubert H. Humphrey


Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.  ~Abraham Lincoln


Freedom is the oxygen of the soul.  ~Moshe Dayan


And I'm proud to be an American,
where at least I know I'm free.
And I won't forget the men who died,
who gave that right to me.
~Lee Greenwood


It is sweet to serve one's country by deeds, and it is not absurd to serve her by words.  ~Sallust


My patriotic heart beats red, white, and blue.  ~Author Unknown


Freedom is not enough.  ~Lyndon B. Johnson


We are free, truly free, when we don't need to rent our arms to anybody in order to be able to lift a piece of bread to our mouths.  ~Ricardo Flores Magon, speech, 31 May 1914


Freedom is never free.  ~Author Unknown


There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America.  ~William J. Clinton

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