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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:

It was Rousseau who was largely responsible for the problem by giving currency to the idea that freedom can exist without responsibility and discipline.

Colin Wilson The Encyclopedia of Modern Murder 1962-1983 (1983)

I am sure of the fact that Fidel and Chávez are commanders of the forces of freedom in America, to liberate America and the world.

Evo Morales

Freedom is dangerous, Cory, but it’s precious, too. You can’t just throw it away or let it slip away. You can’t sell it for bread and pottage.

Octavia Butler Parable of the Sower (1993)

Individual liberty is the whole purpose of political life, and I thought it was threatened then and I think it's threatened now.

John R. Bolton

Though I bequeath you no estate, I leave you in the enjoyment of liberty.

William Bradford

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

Michael Collins

Trust me, all this fuss over freedoms would fade in a mushroom-cloud moment if there were another attack on our soil.

Neil Cavuto

Is not an hereditary nobility inconsistent with liberty? I will ask more, is it not inconsistent with public virtue?

Frances Wright Letter (1820)

The End of the Life of Mankind on Earth is this,—that in this Life they may order all their relations with FREEDOM according to REASON.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte The Characteristics of the Present Age (1806)

The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.

Wole Soyinka

If they want to hang me, let them. And on the scaffold I would shout, 'Freedom for the working class!'

Mother Jones

3D printing is going to transform our societies, our freedoms and our sense of security.

Nayef Al-Rodhan

Freedom of speech was set under the respect for the warlord, rapist and female-abuser Muhammad who murdered and accepted rape as a conquest technique.

Carl I. Hagen In his book Ærlig talt (2007)

The fact that the ministerial conspiracy against liberty had risen from corruption was of the utmost importance to the colonists.

Bernard Bailyn The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (1967)

Yet, this is a small price I have had to pay for seeking to uphold the freedom of speech and expression.

Jeet Thayil

Freedom is taking so much for granted, when you don't appreciate the small things that you have.

Cameron Duncan

Popular suffrage is in itself no guarantee of freedom. People can vote themselves into slavery.

Frank Chodorov The Income Tax: Root of All Evil (1954)

We have to call it out...I believe in freedom of the press but everyone has a responsibility not to incite abuse and death threats.

Anna Soubry

The more freedom a people have, the more unlikely the government will murder them. Democratically free governments do not murder their own people.

Rudolph Rummel The Blue Book of Freedom: Ending Famine, Poverty, Democide, and War (2007)

The freedom is a tear digging into the flesh.

Doina Ruști

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