In honor of 250 years of this American experiment in democracy, I went looking for wise words from our founding fathers and other Americans. We may never live up to the lofty ideals of creating a society based on the notion that all people (not just landowning White Men) are “created equal.” Despite the best of intentions, some of the individuals quoted below failed to live up to their ideals. We should learn from their shortcomings and aim higher. Now, more than ever, we must demand that the actions of our government benefit all Americans instead of a select few.
Think about these quotes every time you evaluate a candidate for local, state, or federal office, and carry these ideas with you to the ballot box. Remember them when you interact with your friends, neighbors, and the strangers you meet.
If America is truly a place where you can achieve your goals make sure those goals include compassion and respect for all humankind and the planet we share.
“Without freedom of thought there can be no such things as wisdom; and no such things as public liberty, without freedom of speech.” Benjamin Franklin (1722)
“Give me liberty or give me death.” Patrick Henry (1775)
“Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth.” President George Washington
“I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American.” Daniel Webster (1830)
“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.” President Abraham Lincoln (1859)
“Government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the Earth.” President Abraham Lincoln (The Gettysburg Address 1863)
“Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist.” Frederick Douglass (1860)
“The Earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the Earth. All things are bound together. All things connect.” Chief Seattle (Squamish)
“When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money.” Cree Prophecy
“Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it.” Mark Twain
“Americanism is a question of principle, of idealism, of character. It is not a matter of birthplace, or creed, or line of descent.” President Theodore Roosevelt
“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.” President Franklin Roosevelt
“True patriotism hates injustice in its own land more than anywhere else.” Clarence Darrow
“True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice.” Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. (Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story 1958)
“My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.” President John F. Kennedy
“In the final analysis, a democratic government represents the sum total of the courage and the integrity of its individuals. It cannot be better than they are.” Eleanor Roosevelt from Tomorrow is Now (published in 1963)
“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (the 1963 March on Washington)
“If the society today allows wrongs to go unchallenged, the impression is that those wrongs have been approved by the majority.” U.S. Congressional Representative Barbara Jordan
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.” President Ronald Reagan
“There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured with what is right in America.” President Bill Clinton
“The measure of a country’s greatness is its ability to retain compassion in times of crisis.” Justice Thurgood Marshall
“The magic of America is that we’re a free and open society with a mixed population. Part of our security is our freedom.” Margaret Albright 64th U.S. Secretary of State
“Liberty is for all men and women as a matter of equal and inalienable right. The establishment of justice and peace abroad will in large measure depend upon the peace and justice we create here in our own country, where we still show the way.” President Gerald Ford (July 4, 1976)
“Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shattered steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve.” President George W. Bush (September 11, 2001)
“The essence of America – that which really unites us – is not ethnicity or nationality or religion – it is an idea – and what an idea it is; that you can come from humble circumstances and do great things.’ Dr, Condoleezza Rice (2012)
“In the face of impossible odds, people who love this country can change it.” President Barack Obama
“I do not think the measure of a civilization is how tall its buildings of concrete are, but rather how well its people have learned to relate to their environment and fellow man.” Sun Bear, Chippewa
“My fellow Americans, we are and will always be a nation of immigrants. We were stranger once, too.” President Barack Obama
“Freedom is not a state; it is not an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we must all take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.” U.S. Congressional Representative John Lewis (from Across the Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future of America 2017)
“Someone needs to explain to me why wanting clean drinking water makes you an activist, and why proposing to destroy water with chemical warfare doesn’t make a corporate terrorist.” Winona LaDuke, Ojibwe