Quotes about Independence

And even should the cloud of barbarism and despotism again obscure the science and liberties of Europe, this country remains to preserve and restore light and liberty to them. In short, the flames kindled on the fourth of July, 1776, have spread over too much of the globe to be extinguished by the feeble engines of despotism; on the contrary, they will consume these engines and all who work them.

One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.

One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.

The God who gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then.

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.

Our civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than our opinions in physics or geometry...

The logic of worldly success rests on a fallacy: the strange error that our perfection depends on the thoughts and opinions and applause of other men! A weird life it is, indeed, to be living always in somebody else's imagination, as if that were the only place in which one could at last become real!

We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.

Reason obeys itself; and ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.

When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.

Our present condition, is, Legislation without law; wisdom without a plan; constitution without a name; and, what is strangely astonishing, perfect Independance contending for dependance.