Independence Day Sayings

Celebrating liberty, freedom, and the American spirit — 771 sayings

I am not a killer. I am a patriot.

— Pol Pot 1997
Self-Deprecating

No prison can hold me; no hand or leg irons or steel locks can shackle me. No ropes or chains can keep me from my freedom.

— Houdini Early 20th century (republished 2026)
Life & Aging

They say I am a dictator. But I am a constitutional dictator.

— Robert Mugabe 2000s
Self-Deprecating

When I was in jail, I was a lot of people's favorite person. I practically ran the jail. I had more freedom than the police.

— Flavor Flav 2006 (source article date)
Self-Deprecating

The greatest glory of a freeborn people is to transmit that freedom to their children.

— Voltaire 1750
Food & Drink

I am not interested in liberation, but in practices of freedom.

— Michel Foucault Unknown
Self-Deprecating

The colonized man finds his freedom in and through violence.

— Frantz Fanon 1961
General

The United States is the last remaining superpower, but it is also the most dangerous rogue state.

— Jurgen Habermas 2003
General

Religious liberty should not extend to the right to discriminate against LGBTQ individuals.

— Martha Nussbaum 2015
Social & Racial

Most people don’t really want freedom because freedom entails responsibility, and responsibility is frightening.

— Yuval Noah Harari 2018
General

Let me add, that only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.

— Benjamin Franklin Unknown, attributed to his writings on government
Shocking

The greatest good is freedom from pleasure.

— Diogenes c. 350 BCE
Food & Drink

Meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus. That didn't turn out so well.

— Stephen Hawking 2016
Shocking

Homo Sapiens. Diurnus; varians cultura, loco. Europaeus albus, Asiaticus luridus, Africanus niger, Americanus rufus.

— Carl Linnaeus 1758 (10th edition of Systema Naturae)
Shocking

Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift.

— Paulo Freire 1968
General

The greatest gift that God in his bounty bestowed on creation was the freedom of the will.

— Dante Alighieri c. 1308-1321
Food & Drink

Man has an innate craving for freedom, but at the same time he has a greater craving for happiness.

— Fyodor Dostoevsky Mid-Late 19th Century
Food & Drink

A Constitution should be short and obscure.

— Napoleon Bonaparte Approx. early 19th century
Shocking

The only certain freedom’s in departure.

— Robert Frost 1942
General

A liberal-constitutional monarchy was the best hope for stability in the new nations of Spanish America.

— Jose de San Martin c. 1816-1822
Shocking
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