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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.

Random quote on Independence Day

Most quoted on independence day:

The only thing that saves us from the bureaucracy is inefficiency. An efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty.

Eugene McCarthy

Bills of rights give assurance to the individual of the preservation of his liberty. They do not define the liberty they promise.

Benjamin N. Cardozo The Paradoxes of Legal Science (1928)

Political correctness is the enemy of freedom because it rejects honesty and authenticity. We have to tackle it as the distortion of the truth.

Mario Vargas Llosa

Man is more than a producing animal guided by economic forces; he is a being of spirit, crowned with glory and honor, endowed with the gift of freedom.

Martin Luther King Jr. Strength to Love (1963)

To those neighbors and allies who share our freedom, we will strengthen our historic ties and assure them of our support and firm commitment.

Ronald Reagan

One cannot see the modern world as it is unless one recognizes the overwhelming strength of patriotism, national loyalty.

George Orwell The Lion and the Unicorn (1941)

In a totalitarian economy, any "political liberties" that the people might retain would simply cease to matter.

Wendell Berry Another Turn of the Crank (1996)

If a man has a genuine, sincere, hearty wish to get rid of his liberty, if he is really bent upon becoming a slave, nothing can stop him.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. Elsie Venner (1859)

Freedom is the gift of God and the Revolution. Freedom belongs to the people and is their fundamental need.

Ali Khamenei

I would rather face the terrorists than lose my civil liberties.

Jesse Ventura Don't Start the Revolution Without Me! (2008)

In my opinion it gives us freedom, not the ultimate freedom that all nations desire and develop to, but the freedom to achieve it.

Michael Collins

Freedom and idiots make a volatile mix. And the sad truth is that the idiocy quotient in the general population is alarmingly high.

Jack McDevitt Odyssey (2006)

If there is no freedom of expression, then the beauty of life is lost. Participation in a society is not an artistic choice, it’s a human need.

Ai Weiwei

We cannot help but note that we have come to the same understanding of freedom and self-control that Spinoza developed in his “Ethics.”

Lev Vygotsky

Freedom is more than just a word and a patriotic concept. It is the purest intent of God.

Steve Maraboli Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010)

We believe that the Statue of Liberty is an important symbol of freedom for our country.

Kenneth Chenault A Principled Leader (2004)

"Must we say that liberty is possible only on a basis of slavery? Perhaps we must.”

Bertrand de Jouvenel On Power: Its Nature and the History of Its Growth (1949)

Politics is the work of the Kshatriya and it is the virtues of the Kshatriya we must develop if we are to be morally fit for freedom.

Sri Aurobindo

If a Tory does not believe that private property is one of the main bulwarks of individual freedom, then he had better become a socialist and have done with it.

Margaret Thatcher

The Flag links up the past and the present. It is the legacy bequeathed to us by the architects of our liberty.

Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan

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