Quality Weenie

Happy Independance Day

I am having trouble putting into words what being and American really means, especially on this Independance Day when thousands of men and women are fighting to maintain my freedom.

So I gathered some quotes on what our for-fathers thought freedom ment to them.

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. Benjamin Franklin

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved. - Franklin D. Roosevelt

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. - Thomas Jefferson

Whenever men take the law into their own hands, the loser is the law. And when the law loses, freedom languishes. -Robert Francis Kennedy

If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you and may posterity forget that ye were once our countrymen. - Samuel Adams

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains or slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take but as for me; give me liberty or give me death! - Patrick Henry

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

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, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. - Thomas Jefferson

In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility-I welcome it. - John Kennedy

The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are. ... The cost of freedom is always high, but Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender, or submission. - John Kennedy

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 Kennedy

He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. - Thomas Paine

No arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. - Ronald Wilson Reagan

The preservation of the sacred fire of liberty and the destiny of the republican model of government are justly considered ... deeply ... finally, staked on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people. - George Washington

America is a Nation with a mission - and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace - a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman. - George W. Bush

America will never seek a permission slip to defend the security of our people. - George W. Bush

Posted by Quality Weenie at July 4, 2005 09:35 AM | TrackBack