What is your favorite quote about freedom?

I know this is not a specific quote, but I have always loved this poem by John McCrae from 1915. The main part I like is the ending where he talks about passing the torch to the rest of us to carry on. That is the “quote” I like the best.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place, and in the sky,
The larks, still bravely singing, fly,
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe!
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high!
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

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We are able to sleep peacefully at night because rough men (and women) stand watch in the dark, ready to do violence in our name to those who would infringe our freedoms.

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“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

Ronald Reagan

Every time I think this drama in this country has nothing to do with me. I’ve got this quote on a poster and have recently moved it downstairs so it is a constant reminder

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“Freedom isn’t free, it’s earned.”

Spoken by one of my former commanders during a briefing. It’s stuck with me since.

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Paul Harrell used to have this quote in the opening of his shows and I always found it to be a sobering thought and a reminder of our obligation to build on what we have so future generations have it bette than we do

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Our all is at stake, and the little conveniences and comforts of life, when set in competition with our Liberty, ought to be rejected not with reluctance, but with pleasure. George Mason of Virginia.
Es mejor morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado! Emiliano Zapata of Mexico
Freedom! Is worship word, Yang worship. Do not speak it! Proud William to Capt. James Kirk

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@HankHurlstone Welcome to the community, we are glad to have you. Stay safe, Bruce and Nancy. :+1:

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We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

July 4, 1776

Author: Thomas Jefferson
Editors: Benjamin Franklin and John Adam

Joined by:

Georgia
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

North Carolina
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn

South Carolina
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Massachusetts
John Hancock

Maryland
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton

Virginia
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Pennsylvania
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross

Delaware
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

New York
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris

New Jersey
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

New Hampshire
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple

Massachusetts
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry

Rhode Island
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery

Connecticut
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott

New Hampshire
Matthew Thornton

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“I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”

–Voltaire

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Difficult choice.

  1. “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

  2. “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are ruined… The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able might have a gun.” - Patrick Henry, Speech to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, June 5, 1778

  3. But only here did that little band of men so advanced beyond their time that the world has never seen their like since, evolve the idea that you and I have within ourselves the God-given right and the ability to determine our own destiny. But freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it and then hand it to them with the well thought lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same. And if you and I don’t do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free. ~ Ronald Reagan

  4. And suddenly it dawned on me; those who would read this letter a hundred years from now will know whether those missiles were fired. They will know whether we met our challenge.
    Whether they will have the freedom that we have known up until now will depend on what we do here. Will they look back with appreciation and say, “Thank God for those people in 1976 who headed off that loss of freedom? ~ Ronald Reagan

  5. “I prefer dangerous freedom over peaceful slavery.” - Thomas Jefferson

  6. “When the people fear the government there is tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty.” John Basil Barnhill

  7. “Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in the insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding.” ~ Justice Louis Brandeis.

  8. “I hope we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts.” ~ Ronald Reagan.

  9. “I think we’ve been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it’s the government’s job to cope with it. ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant.’ ‘I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It’s our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbor. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There’s no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation.” ~ Margaret Thatcher

  10. “Economic freedom is … an indispensable means toward the achievement of political freedom.” ~ Milton Friedman.

  11. “When plunder has become a way of life for a group of people living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it, and a moral code that glorifies it.” ~ Frédéric Bastiat.

  12. “The secret to happiness is freedom… And the secret to freedom is courage.” – Thucydides

  13. “What then is freedom? The power to live as one wishes.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero

There are far too many to choose just one.

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“Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.”
1 Peter 2:16 NIV

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Excellent quote,

There is additional information;

“Some one has justly remarked, that ‘eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.’ Let the sentinels on the watch-tower sleep not, and slumber not.” ~ May 2, 1833 edition of The Virginia Free Press and Farmers’ Repository

“The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.” ~ John Philpot Curran

The 1809 biography of Major General James Jackson, written by Thomas Charlton… Charlton wrote that that one of the obligations of biographers of famous people is “fastening upon the minds of the American people the belief, that ‘the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.’

They still state Jefferson never wrote it or said it… but… he may very well have… the phrase originated somewhere.

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Here’s a quote from George Mason, co-author of the 2nd Amendment:

“I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people. To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.”

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As Thomas Jefferson so aptly declared:

“No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.”

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A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment II, Constitution of United States of America

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Even I love the quote mentioned at the first post, there is another one told by polish general Kazimierz Pulaski during American Revolutionary War:
“I came here, where freedom is being defended, to serve it and to live or die for it”

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Wise Words for our times. :thinking:

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image

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Janis sang “Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”.

Which is true in a last ditch, end of the line, out of options, no way out, do or die sort of way.

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