Inspiring Fourth of July Quotes to Ignite Your Patriotism

"I believe in America because we have great dreams, and because we have the opportunity to make those dreams come true."

- Wendell Willkie

"You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4th, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism."

- Erma Bombeck

"Independence Day: freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"It will be celebrated with pomp and parade, bonfires and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other."

- John Adams

"Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall."

- John Dickinson

"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

"Where liberty dwells, there is my country."

- Benjamin Franklin

"America means opportunity, freedom, power."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Give me liberty or give me death!"

- Patrick Henry

"Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country."

- John F. Kennedy

"We hold our heads high, despite the price we have paid, because freedom is priceless."

- Lech Walesa

"Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance. It is also owed to justice and to humanity. Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong."

- James Bryce

"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 snow capped Rockies of Colorado! Let freedom ring from the curvaceous peaks 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 every molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring."

- Martin Luther King Jr.

"In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

- Abraham Lincoln

"The happiness of America is intimately connected with the happiness of all mankind; she is destined to become the safe and venerable asylum of virtue, of honesty, of tolerance, and quality and of peaceful liberty."

- Marquis de Lafayette

"Happy 4th of July! This country of immigrants, religious refugees, outcasts and dreamers has come a long way. Let’s keep going."

- Ellen DeGeneres

"Courage is more exhilarating than fear and in the long run it is easier. We do not have to become heroes overnight. Just one step at a time, meeting each thing that comes up, seeing it is not as dreadful as it appeared, discovering we have the strength to stare it down."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"Wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will be America’s heart, her benedictions and her prayers be."

- John Quincy Adams

"Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country."

- Marquis de Lafayette

"Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong."

- James Bryce

"Happy 4th of July! As you take this day to honor America, ask yourself, “Why am I not honoring America on the other 364 days? Shame on me."

- Stephen Colbert

"America is another name for opportunity."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Freedom is never given, it is won."

- A. Phillip Randolph

"America was built on courage, on imagination, and an unbeatable determination."

- Harry S Truman

"The United States is the only country with a known birthday."

- James G. Blaine

"America is a tune. It must be sung together."

- Gerald Stanley Lee

"For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."

- Nelson Mandela

"Freedom is the open window through which pours the sunlight of the human spirit and human dignity."

- Herbert Hoover

"For everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labour in freedom."

- Albert Einstein

"The Declaration of Independence! The interest which in that paper has survived the occasion upon which it was issued; the interest which is of every age and every clime; the interest which quickens with the lapse of years, spreads as it grows old, and brightens as it recedes, is in the principles which it proclaims."

- President John Quincy Adams

"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will."

- Charlotte Brontë

"The only real prison is fear, and the only real freedom is freedom from fear."

- Aung San Suu Kyi

"No person is your friend (or kin) who demands your silence, or denies your right to grow."

- Amelia Earhart

"Resistance to tyranny becomes the Christian and social duty of each individual. … Continue steadfast and, with a proper sense of your dependence on God, nobly defend those rights which heaven gave, and no man ought to take from us."

- John Hancock

"You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism."

- Erma Bombeck

"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

"Life without liberty is like a body without spirit."

- Kahlil Gibran

"One flag, one land. One Heart, one hand. One nation, evermore."

- Oliver Wendell Holmes

"Those who stand for nothing, fall for anything."

- Alexander Hamilton

"This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave."

- Elmer Davis

"We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it."

- William Faulkner

"Independence now, and Independence forever!"

- Daniel Webster

"I’m just like my country — I’m young, scrappy, and hungry, and I am not throwing away my shot."

- Alexander Hamilton from Hamilton

"Liberty has been planted here; and the more it is attacked, the more it grows and flourishes."

- Samuel Sherwood

"Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth."

- George Washington

"I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

"What do you suppose will satisfy the Soul, except to walk free, and own no superior?"

- Alice Walker

"America is much more than a geographical fact. It is a political and moral fact – the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality."

- Adlai Stevenson

"Let freedom never perish in your hands."

- Joseph Addison

"It is the love of country that has lighted and that keeps glowing the holy fire of patriotism."

- J. Horace McFarland

"Independence is a heady draft, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine does. It does not matter that its taste is not always appealing. It is addictive and with each drink you want more."

- Maya Angelou

"Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt, that you can set upon the freedom of my mind."

- Virginia Woolf

"Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better."

- Albert Camus

"All we have of freedom, all we use or know — This our fathers bought for us long and long ago."

- Rudyard Kipling

"For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?"

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"No one outside ourselves can rule us inwardly. When we know this, we become free."

- Buddha

"Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty."

- Louis D. Brandeis

"Happy 4th of July! This country of immigrants, religious refugees, outcasts, and dreamers has come a long way. Let's keep going."

- Ellen DeGeneres

"America is a tune. It must be sung together."

- Gerald Stanley Lee

"Freedom lies in being bold."

- Robert Frost

"We on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their ploughs but to secure liberty for their souls."

- Robert J. McCracken

"We were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edge of print. It gave us more freedom. We lived in the gaps between the stories."

- Margaret Atwood

"The United States is the only country with a known birthday. All the rest began, they know not when, and grew into power, they know not how.... There is no "Republican," no "Democrat," on the Fourth of July, — all are Americans."

- James Gillespie Blaine

"Is freedom anything else than the right to live as we wish? Nothing else."

- Epictetus

"This Fourth of July, instead of celebrating your Americanness, do something to redeem your humanness."

- Abhijit Naskar

"Liberty is the breath of life to nations."

- George Bernard Shaw

"All great change in America begins at the dinner table."

- Ronald Reagan

"I always have the most fun on the Fourth of July. You don’t have to exchange any gifts. You just go to the beach and watch fireworks. It’s always fun."

- James Lafferty

"If America stands today as a free country, it's because of those Americans who sacrificed their lives fighting against the redcoats."

- Abhijit Naskar

"Die for the people and even in death you shall live."

- Abhijit Naskar

"To be a light on a hill we must be a people on our knees."

- Craig D. Lounsbrough

"We will stand by the right, we will stand by the true, we will live, we will die for the red, white, and blue."

"It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you."