Quotes about Independence

No man is truly free who is in financial bondage. 'Think what you do when you run in debt', said Benjamin Franklin, 'you give another power over your liberty.'

There is nothing that gives a man consequence, and renders him fit for command, like a support that renders him independent of everybody but the State he serves.

How does it become a man to behave towards the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.

It may be true that he travels farthest who travels alone, but the goal thus reached is not worth reaching.

the more I see the better satisfied I am that 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.

I then held, and now hold, the belief that a man's first duty is to pull his own weight and to take care of those dependent upon him; and I then believed, and now believe, that the greatest privilege and greatest duty for any man is to be happily married, and that no other form of success or service, for either man or woman, can be wisely accepted as a substitute or alternative.

You must do it alone.

All for each, and each for all, is a good motto; but only on condition that each works with might and main to so maintain himself as not to be a burden to others.

The highest manifestation of life consists in this: that a being governs its own actions. A thing which is always subject to the direction of another is somewhat of a dead thing.

I'd never take a job where I had to do something that I didn't want to do.

The fact is, it's good to be free. No one ever marches against freedom, chanting, "Down with liberty! Back to bondage! I want to do only what the government tells me to do!

Freedom will bite back more fiercely when suspended than when she remains undisturbed.