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:
Freedom is the ability to be themselves relative to each other and to the world.
So much is now lost in the city I love: the freedom to tell the truth.
Freedom is not a thing that we have, but a thing that we do.
"True liberation comes not only from political freedom but also from economic and social justice."
Happiness that is not attached to external validation is true freedom.
Fond of your freedom spurn the venal fee,
And prove he's only great—who dares to be free.
The main reason for the restriction of political freedom is [the lack of] social justice.
My spirit is not banned — I still say I want freedom in my lifetime.
Ye sons of Columbia, unite in the cause
Of liberty, justice, religion, and laws.
It is only when one is thoroughly true that there can be purity and freedom.
This too is not a limitation, it is a defence of freedom itself.