On July 4, 1776, fifty-six leaders of the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence. With this signing, our Founding Fathers declared the 2.5 million people living in the thirteen colonies members of a new, independent nation: The United States of America. Every year, patriotic folks across the nation celebrate our freedom and this momentous occasion with fireworks, BBQ parties, parades, and outdoor games as scores of American flags can be seen soaring across the nation. RELATED: 75 Inspirational & Timeless Quotes From U.S. Presidents Displays and events like these bring people together to mark the day and put their American pride on full display. And being able to celebrate this American pride and patriotism is one of this country’s greatest hallmarks.
Here’s our collection of 50 of the best 4th of July quotes from founding fathers and patriots to help you celebrate.
1. “Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people.” — Abraham Lincoln
2. “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.” — Abraham Lincoln
3. “Freedom is one of the deepest and noblest aspirations of the human spirit.” — Ronald Reagan
4. “Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.” — John Dickinson
5. “This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.” — Elmer Davis
6. “America means opportunity, freedom, power.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
7. “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” — George Orwell
8. “America, to me, is freedom.” — Willie Nelson
9. “America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination, and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand.” — Harry S. Truman
10. “The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.” — James Madison
11. “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.” — George S. Patton
12. “With freedom comes responsibility.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
13. “The winds that blow through the wide sky in these mounts, the winds that sweep from Canada to Mexico, from the Pacific to the Atlantic — have always blown on free men.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
14. “I like to see a man proud of the place in which he lives. I like to see a man live so that his place will be proud of him.” — Abraham Lincoln
15. “Liberty is the breath of life to nations.” — George Bernard Shaw
16. “One flag, one land, one heart, one hand, One Nation evermore!” — Oliver Wendell Holmes
17. “May the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country!” — Daniel Webster
18. “In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
19. “All we have of freedom, all we use or know — This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.” — Rudyard Kipling
20. “Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance.” — Woodrow Wilson
21. “A man’s country is not a certain area of land, of mountains, rivers, and woods, but it is a principle; and patriotism is loyalty to that principle.” — George William Curtis
22. “America is hope. It is compassion. It is excellence. It is valor.” — Paul Tsongas
23. “May we think of freedom not as the right to do as we please, but as the opportunity to do what is right.” — Peter Marshall
24. “America. It is the only place where miracles not only happen, but where they happen all the time.” — Thomas Wolfe
25. “The American Revolution was a beginning, not a consummation.” — Woodrow Wilson
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26. “Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness.” — Louis D. Brandeis
27. “It is the love of country that has lighted and that keeps glowing the holy fire of patriotism.” — J. Horace McFarland
28. “The flag is the embodiment, not of sentiment, but of history.” — Woodrow Wilson
29. “The American flag is the symbol of our freedom, national pride and history.” — Mike Fitzpatrick
30. “The American, by nature, is optimistic. He is experimental, an inventor, and a builder who builds best when called upon to build greatly.” — John F. Kennedy
31. “Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.” — Albert Camus
32. “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.” — Benjamin Franklin
33. “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, 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 F. Kennedy
34. “America is a tune. It must be sung together.” — Gerald Stanley Lee
35. “I am an American, free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit.” — Theodore Roosevelt
36. “If our country is worth dying for in time of war let us resolve that it is truly worth living for in time of peace.” — Hamilton Fish
37. “I believe in America because we have great dreams, and because we have the opportunity to make those dreams come true.” — Wendell Wilkie
38. “Independence now and forever!” — Daniel Webster
39. “America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination.” — Harry S. Truman
40. “Where liberty dwells, there is my country.” — Benjamin Franklin
41. “Freedom is never granted. It is earned by each generation.” — Hillary Clinton
42. “The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object.” — Thomas Jefferson
43. “We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.” — William Faulkner
44. “We are free, truly free, when we don’t need to rent our arms to anybody in order to be able to lift a piece of bread to our mouths.” — Ricardo Flores Magon
45. “Let us dare to read, think, speak and write.” — John Adams
46. “And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’” — Martin Luther King Jr.
47. “Give me liberty or give me death!” — Patrick Henry
48. “Freedom lies in being bold.” — Robert Frost
49. “Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.” — Abraham Lincoln
50. “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” — John F. Kennedy
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