Born to Freedom, Believing in Freedom

America is celebrating its first Independence Day of a new century. Amid the car sales, barbecues and fireworks displays, it is easy to forget the rationale for the independence we declared from England 224 years ago: freedom. Consider some of the insights into freedom that are a part of our heritage:

“Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end.” --Lord Acton

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“Posterity: You will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.” --John Quincy Adams

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“A nation which makes the final sacrifice for life and freedom does not get beaten.” --Kemal Ataturk

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“The cause of freedom is the cause of God.” --Samuel Bowles

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“Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy.” --Edmund Burke

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“Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.” --Benjamin Cardozo

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“Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free.” --Dwight D. Eisenhower

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

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“Freedom is fragile and must be protected. To sacrifice it, even as a temporary measure, is to betray it.” --Germaine Greer

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“The greatest glory of a free-born people is to transmit that freedom to their children.” --John Harvard

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“Only very slowly and late have men come to realize that unless freedom is universal it is only extended privilege.” --Christopher Hill

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“The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do.” --Eric Hofer

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“You should never have your best trousers on when you turn out to fight for freedom and truth.” --Henrik Ibsen

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“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.” --Thomas Jefferson

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“Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.” --Abraham Lincoln

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“If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that too.” --Amy Lowell

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“There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.” --James Madison

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“The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs or impede their efforts to obtain it.” --John Stuart Mill

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“The American Revolution was not fought to obtain freedom, but to preserve the liberties that Americans already had as colonials. Independence was no conscious goal, secretly nurtured in cellar or jungle by bearded conspirators, but a reluctant last resort, to preserve ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’.” --Samuel Eliot Morison

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“Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” --Thomas Paine

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“Freedom is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it.” --Pericles

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“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” --William Pitt

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“We, too, born to freedom, and believing in freedom, are willing to fight to maintain freedom. We, and all others who believe as deeply as we do, would rather die on our feet than live on our knees.” --Franklin Delano Roosevelt

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“Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression.” --Malcolm X

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In a world and time that has largely forgotten or chosen to overlook crucial issues of freedom, these are words we need to take seriously.