Independence Day Quotes
Despite the name, this is not a page about the American Fourth of July. It is built from the freedom and patriotism pages, and the writers who turn up come from all over: the Puerto Rican poet Julia de Burgos, the Italian anarchist Bruno Filippi, Shakespeare, Anna Quindlen. De Burgos has a line about an invaded nation where today’s battlefield is independence.
A few entries are there because of a keyword, not a mood. Cervantes’s remark about not thrusting his nose into other men’s porridge (Don Quixote, 1605) is about minding your own business. If you want something for a speech, sort by source grade and skip the oddities.
Most quoted on independence day:
No, Freedom has a thousand charms to show
That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.
Behold! in Liberty’s unclouded blaze
We lift our heads, a race of other days.
Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying,
Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind.