Independence Day Quotations

Guest Author - Danielle Hollister

Celebrate Fourth of July with this Special Collection of Quotations related to Independence Day and Patriotism

Abraham Lincoln

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal."
-- The Gettysburg Address, 1863
"Now we are engaged in a great civil war. . .testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated. . . can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war."
-- Gettysburg Address November 19, 1863
"We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this."
-- Gettysburg Address November 19, 1863
"But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate. . .we cannot consecrate. . . we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."
-- Gettysburg Address November 19, 1863
"It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us. . .that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion. . . that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain. . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. . . and that government of the people. . .by the people. . .for the people. . . shall not perish from this earth."
-- Gettysburg Address November 19, 1863
"This is essentially a people's contest... whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men - to lift artificial weights from all shoulders - to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all - to afford all, an unfettered start and a fair chance, in the race of life."
-- Message to Congress, July 4, 1861
"A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free."
-- 1858
"I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free."
-- June 16, 1858 Speech, Republican State Convention, Springfield, Illinois
"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy."
-- Address, Cleveland, Ohio February 15, 1861
"I have not permitted myself, gentlemen, to conclude that I am the best man in the country; but I am reminded in this connection of a story of an old Dutch farmer, who remarked to a companion once that it was not best to swap horses when crossing a stream."
-- Reply to National Union League June 9, 1864
"But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or to detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here."
-- Gettysburg Address November 19, 1863
"If we do not make common cause to save the good old ship of the Union on this voyage, nobody will have a chance to pilot her on another voyage."
-- Address, Cleveland, Ohio February 15, 1861
"In giving freedom to the slave we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve."
-- Second annual Message to Congress December 1, 1862
"...That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
-- Gettysburg Address November 19, 1863
"Human nature will not change. In any future great national trial, compared with the men of this, we shall have as weak and as strong, as silly and as wise, as bad and as good."
-- Response to a Serenade November 10, 1864
"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan-to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
-- Second Inaugural Address March 4, 1865
"I don't s'pose anybody on earth likes gingerbread better'n I do-and gets less'n I do."
-- Quoted by Carl Sandburg : The Prairie Years
"A great man, tender of heart, strong of nerve, boundless patience and broadest sympathy, with no motive apart from his country."
-- Frederick Douglass on Abraham Lincoln
"When angry, count ten, before you speak; if very angry, an hundred."
"Books constitute capital. A library book lasts as long as a house, for hundreds of years. It is not, then, an article of mere consumption but fairly of capital, and often in the case of professional men, setting out in life, it is their only capital."
"We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
"tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that his justice cannot sleep forever."
"The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave."
"Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it."
"No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will."
"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
"Equal and exact justice to all men…freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of person under the protection of the habeas corpus; and trial by juries impartially selected,these principles form the bright constellation which has gone before us."
Benjamin Franklin
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
"Idleness and pride tax with a heavier hand than kings and parliaments. If we can get rid of the former, we may easily bear the latter."
"We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."
John Adams (1735–1826)
"I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in providence, for the illumination of the ignorant and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."
"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right…and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean of the characters and conduct of their rulers."
"I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure it will cost us to maintain this declaration, and support and defend these states. Yet through all the gloom I see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is worth all the means. This is our day of deliverance."
George Washington
"Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation."
"Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder."
"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving the peace."
Andrew Jackson
"The brave man inattentive to his duty, is worth little more to his country, than the coward who deserts her in the hour of danger."
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing."
"One man with courage makes a majority."
Patrick Henry
"Gentlemen may cry, peace, peace-but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!"
"That religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence; and therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of the conscience; and it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian forbearance, love, and charity towards each other."
MORE QUOTATIONS RELATED TO INDEPENDENCE DAY
"God had a divine purpose in placing this land between two great oceans to be found by those who had a special love of freedom and courage."
-- Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States of America
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty."
-- John Fitzgerald Kennedy
35th president of the United States of America
"Patriotism is easy to understand in America; it means looking out for yourself by looking out for your country."
-- Calvin Coolidge, 29th President of the United States of America
"Our flag is our national ensign, pure and simple, behold it! Listen to it! Every star has a tongue, every stripe is articulate."
-- Robert Winthrop (1809-1894), Senator from Massachusetts
"Statistics show that we lose more fools on this day than on all other days of the year put together. This proves, by the numbers left in stock, that one Fourth of July per year is now inadequate, the country has grown so."
-- Mark Twain
"While Gen'l Howe with a Large Armament is advancing towards N. York, our Congress resolved to Declare the United Colonies free and Independent States. A Declaration for this Purpose, I expect, will this day pass Congress...It is gone so far that we must now be a free independent State, or a Conquered Country."
-- Abraham Clark (1726–1794)
"That these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown; and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."
-- Richard Henry Lee (1732–1794)
"There, I guess King George will be able to read that."
-- John Hancock (1737–1793)

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