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:
We are not to expect to be translated from despotism to liberty in a featherbed.
The arrogance of power is the best hope for the survival of freedom.
Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.
Liberty is absence of restraint. Freedom is participation in government.
It is difficult to wrench your world around to allow you freedom.