MAIN Home Life Holidays 4th of July Quotes for the 4th of July

Top 40 Quotes for the Fourth

While the USA elebrates the day with 4th of July fireworks and 4th of July barbecues, the occasion also calls for the wise, pithy, and sometimes funny and memorable words from American patriots and lovers of freedom everywhere.

Just up ahead, check out the Top 40 quotes for commemorating America's birthday this 4th of July to include in holiday cards or decorations, or for inspiring patriotic toasts or speeches.

These include quotes from our Founding Fathers, song lyrics from popular tunes, as well as lines from works of literature about the birth of freedom and the enduring blessings of liberty.

Happy 4th!

1. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." ~ The Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776

2. "There, I guess King George will be able to read that." ~ John Hancock, after signing the Declaration of Independence, 1776.

3. "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." ~ Benjamin Franklin after signing the Declaration of Independence, 1776.

4. "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

5. "I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." ~ Nathan Hale

6. "America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~ Abraham Lincoln

7. "Abandon your animosities and make your sons Americans!" ~ Robert E Lee, following the Civil War

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

8. "America is a passionate idea or it is nothing. America is a human brotherhood or it is chaos." ~ Max Lerner

9. "Do not regard the critics as questionable patriots. What were Washington and Jefferson and Adams but profound critics of the colonial status quo?" ~ Adlai Stevenson

10. "I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.'" ~ Martin L. King Jr.

11. "Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country." ~ Sinclair Lewis

12. "It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope." ~ Robert Kennedy

13. "Liberty means responsibility. That is why most men dread it." ~ George Bernard Shaw

14. "Ours is the only country deliberately founded on a good idea." ~ John Gunther

15. "Sure I wave the American flag. Do you know a better flag to wave? Sure I love my country with all her faults. I'm not ashamed of that, never have been, never will be." ~ John Wayne

16. "No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck." ~ Frederick Douglass

"No man can put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck."

17. "Ev'ry heart beats true 'neath the Red, White and Blue" ~ George M. Cohan

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

19. "Land where my fathers died,
Land of the pilgrims' pride,
From every mountainside
Let freedom ring!" ~ Samuel F. Smith, My Country 'Tis of Thee

20. "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

21. "This land is your land, this land is my land
From California, to the New York Island
From the redwood forest, to the gulf stream waters
This land was made for you and me" ~ Woody Guthrie, This Land Is Your Land

22. "You can protect your liberties in this world only by protecting the other man's freedom. You can be free only if I am free." ~ Clarence Darrow

23. "One flag, one land, one heart, one hand, One Nation evermore!" - Oliver Wendell Holmes

24. "For what avail the plough or sail, or land or life, if freedom fail?" ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

"You can protect your liberties in this world only by protecting the other man's freedom. You can be free only if I am free."

25. "There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America." Bill Clinton

26. "In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved." ~ Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

28. "And I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free, and I won't forget the men who died, who gave that right to me." ~ Lee Greenwood, Proud to Be an American

29. "The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself-always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity." ~ Jimmy Carter

30. "Liberty is the breath of life to nations." ~ George Bernard Shaw

31. "What is the essence of America? Finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom 'to' and freedom 'from.'" ~ Marilyn vos Savant

32. "What the people want is very simple - they want an America as good as its promise." ~ Barbara Jordan.

33. "We are not just any nation." - Henry Kissenger

34. "Baseball is an allegorical play about America, a poetic, complex, and subtle play of courage, fear, good luck, mistakes, patience about fate, and sober self-esteem." ~ Saul Steinberg

35. "America is too great for small dreams." ~ Ronald Reagan

"We dare not forget that we are the heirs of that first revolution."

36. "The United States is not a nation of people which in the long run allows itself to be pushed around." - Dorothy Thompson

37. "We dare not forget that we are the heirs of that first revolution." ~ John F. Kennedy

38. "I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually." ~ James Baldwin

39. "America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shinning sea!" ~ Katherine Lee Bates, America The Beautiful

40. "The American dream is not over. America is an adventure." - Theodore H. White

More quotes for the 4th of July around the Web:

4th of July, Patriotic Quotes, Sentiments and Sayings

USA Independence Day Quotes

American Patriotics Quotes, USA Patriotism Sayings