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:
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once.
Human freedom is the ultimate, the unique end to which man should destine himself.
The nations lift their right hands up and swear
Their oath of freedom.
I must have liberty
Withal, as large a charter as the wind,
To blow on whom I please.
So every bondman in his own hand bears
The power to cancel his captivity.
No one loves his country for its size or eminence, but because it is his own.