I thought I’d change up my Friday post this week in honor of Independence Day. Liberty and Independence are complicated ideas upon which to found a country as our history has proven. Here are my favorite quotes from founding fathers, classic writers and even a fictional president.
Benjamin Franklin, Memoirs of the life & writings of Benjamin Franklin
“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Abraham Lincoln
“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.”
Thomas Jefferson (affectionately known as TJ in our house)
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.”
“I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves ; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.”
George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman
“Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it.”
John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage
“If by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal”, then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.”
Joseph Heller, Catch-22
“The country was in peril; he was jeopardizing his traditional rights of freedom and independence by daring to exercise them.”
Robert G. Ingersoll, The Liberty of Man, Woman and Child
“This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right you claim for yourself.”
Emma Goldman
“People have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take.”
Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement speech, 2005
“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.”
And, finally, my favorite fictional presidential speech of all time: Andrew Shepard, The American President
“America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, because it’s going to put up a fight.”
Check out the video here:
alenaslife 