Declaration Of Independence Quotes - Page 3

• The Declaration of Independence was a denial, and the first denial of a nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon one man to govern others.

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Men, Independence, Firsts

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1907). “The works of Robert G. Ingersoll”, p.114, Library of Alexandria

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nothing important was ever accomplished without chutzpah. Columbus had chutzpah. The signers of the Declaration of Independence had chutzpah. Don't ever aim doubt at yourself. Laugh at yourself, but don't doubt yourself.

  Alan Alda

  Laughing, Doubt, Independence

  "Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself". Book by Alan Alda, abcnews.go.com. 2007.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Even the Declaration of Independence starts out all men are created equal, so I see my advocacy as part of an effort to make the equality principle everything the founders would have wanted it to be if they weren't held back by the society in which they lived and particularly the shame of slavery.

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg

  Men, Effort, Independence

  13 Copy quote

• The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of these United States are covenants we have made not only with ourselves, but with all mankind. Our founding documents proclaim to the world that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few. It is the universal right of all God's children.

  Ronald Reagan

  Freedom, Children, Independence

  Ronald Reagan (1998). “A Shining City: The Legacy of Ronald Reagan”

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• May it be to the world... to assume the blessings and security of self-government.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Freedom, Blessing, Government

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence, contin. Reports and opinions while Secretary of State”, p.450

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• People don't even recognize who the Founding Fathers of the United States were. They were exceptional human beings - when you signed the Declaration of Independence, that was a death warrant they signed their name to. You have to have courage to put your name on a death warrant against the most powerful nation in the world at that time. And yet, we didn't honor who they really were. They were deists. They lived an enlightened belief system.

  Bruce H. Lipton

  Powerful, Father, People

  Source: lotusguide.com

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• When our founding fathers put their signatures on the Declaration of Independence, those 56 brave people, most of whom by the way were clergymen, they said that we had certain inalienable rights given to us by our creator, and among these life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, life being one of them. I still believe that.

  Mike Huckabee

  Father, Believe, Pursuit Of Happiness

  The Republican Presidential debate on Fox News Channel in Orlando, Fla., www.nytimes.com. October 21, 2007.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source
• 

  I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Friendship, Sad, Philosophy

  Thomas Jefferson (2010). “The Works of Thomas Jefferson: 1799-1803”, p.130, Cosimo, Inc.

  343 Copy quote

  Show source

• The democratic principle, enunciated in the words of the Declaration of Independence, declared that government was secondary, that the people who established it were primary. Thus, the future of democracy depended on the people, and their growing consciousness of what was the decent way to relate to their fellow human beings all over the world.

  Howard Zinn

  Government, People, Independence

  Howard Zinn (2015). “A People's History of the United States: 1492-Present”, p.682, Routledge

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Repeal the Missouri Compromise - repeal all compromises - repeal the Declaration of Independence - repeal all past history, you still can not repeal human nature. It still will be the abundance of man's heart, that slavery extension is wrong; and out of the abundance of his heart, his mouth will continue to speak.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Change, Heart, Past

  Address on the Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, delivered 16 October 1854, Peoria, Illinois

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men. We...solemnly publish and declare, that these colonies are and of a right ought to be free and independent states...and for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine providence, we mutually pledge our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honour.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Independent, Men, Pursuit Of Happiness

  Thomas Jefferson (1997). “Thomas Jefferson, His Words and Vision”, p.15, Peter Pauper Press, Inc.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable" in a draft of the Declaration of Independence changes it instead into an assertion of rationality. The scientific mind of Franklin drew on the scientific determinism of Isaac Newton and the analytic empiricism of David Hume and Gottfried Leibniz. In what became known as "Hume's Fork" the latters' theory distinguished between synthetic truths that describe matters of fact, and analytic truths that are self-evident by virtue of reason and definition.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Self, Independence, Mind

  21 Copy quote

• To ask whether the natural rights philosophy of the Declaration of Independence is true or false, is essentially a meaningless question.

  Carl L. Becker

  Philosophy, Rights, Independence

  Carl L. Becker (2013). “Declaration of Independence: A Study in the History of Political Ideas”, p.188, Vintage

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Declaration of Independence . . . [is the] declaratory charter of our rights, and the rights of man.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, Rights, Independence

  B. L. Rayner, Thomas Jefferson (1834). “Life of Thomas Jefferson: with selections from the most valuable portions of his voluminious and unrivalled private correspondence : with portrait”, p.58

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• It was right then that I started thinking about Thomas Jefferson on the Declaration of Independence and the part about our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And I remember thinking how did he know to put the pursuit part in there? That maybe happiness is something that we can only pursue and maybe we can actually never have it. No matter what. How did he know that?

  Chris Gardner

  Pursuit Of Happiness, Thinking, Independence

  31 Copy quote

• If the author of the Declaration of Independence were to utter such a sentiment today, the Post Office Department could exclude him from the mail, grand juries could indict him for sedition and criminal syndicalism, legislative committees could seize his private papers and United States Senators would be clamoring for his deportation that he should be sent back to live with the rest of the terrorists.

  Frank I. Cobb

  Office, Independence, Patriotism

  4 Copy quote

• If the American Revolution had produced nothing but the Declaration of Independence, it would have been worth while. . . . The beauty and cogency of the preamble, reaching back to remotest antiquity and forward so an indefinite future, have lifted the hearts of millions of men and will continue to do. . . . These words are more revolutionary than anything written by Robespierre, Marx, or Lenin, more explosive than the atom, a continual challenge to ourselves as well as an inspiration to the oppressed of all the world.

  Samuel Eliot Morison

  Inspiration, Heart, Men

  13 Copy quote

• I don't believe in democracy. In the second place, neither did our white forefathers. I believe, as they did, in a republican authoritarian republic with a limited electorate - just like the one the writers of our Constitution meant this country to be. When these white Christian patriots sat down to write the Declaration of Independence, there were no black citizens for them to worry about.

  George Lincoln Rockwell

  Christian, Country, Believe

  Interview with Alex Haley, Playboy, April 1966.

  105 Copy quote

  Show source

• If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Men, Rights, Progress

  Calvin Coolidge (2001). “The Quotable Calvin Coolidge: Sensible Words for a New Century”, Images from the Past Incorporated

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• those who are afraid of freedom are those who cannot trust us to live in them. Trying to keep the law is actually a declaration of independence, a way of keeping control

  William P. Young

  Law, Independence, Trying

  12 Copy quote

• What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Country, Freedom, Gun

  Letter toWilliam Stephens Smith, 13 Nov. 1787

  81 Copy quote

  Show source

• Legalized abortion is a national holocaust; an affront to our national character; a contradiction of established principles subscribed to from the beginning of Western Civilization; an insult to the principles of our Declaration of Independence; a bane of our national spirit; and a stench in the nostrils of Almighty God.

  Chuck Baldwin

  Character, Civilization, Abortion

  12 Copy quote

• The flag of the United States has not been created by rhetorical sentences in declarations of independence and in bills of rights. It has been created by the experience of a great people, and nothing is written upon it that has not been written by their life. It is the embodiment, not of a sentiment, but of a history.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Rights, People, Independence

  Woodrow Wilson, Albert Bushnell Hart (2002). “Selected Addresses and Public Papers of Woodrow Wilson”, p.91, The Minerva Group, Inc.

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor;-let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children's liberty.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Children, Father, Character

  Abraham Lincoln, Don Edward Fehrenbacher (1977). “Abraham Lincoln, a Documentary Portrait Through His Speeches and Writings”, p.39, Stanford University Press

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Surely, if it is the right of the people to "alter or abolish," it is their right to criticize, even severely, policies they believe destructive of the ends for which government has been established. This principle, in the Declaration of Independence, suggests that true patriotism lies in supporting the values the country is supposed to cherish: equality, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. When our government compromises, undermines, or attacks those values, it is being unpatriotic.

  Howard Zinn

  Country, Lying, Believe

  Howard Zinn (2013). “A Power Governments Cannot Suppress”, p.112, City Lights Books

  10 Copy quote

  Show source