Quotes & Sayings About America's Freedom

137 years later, Memorial Day remains one of America's most cherished patriotic observances. The spirit of this day has not changed - it remains a day to honor those who died defending our freedom and democracy. — Doc Hastings

Wonder Woman represented modern America as leader of
the free world, and champion of the downtrodden. She forsook her kingdom and immortality to make the whole world a better place and, most of all, to fight for the rights of females. Just as America emerged as a global peacekeeper, Wonder Woman's adventures took her wherever women were in peril and their freedom was threatened, like the planet Venus with its butterfly-winged women, or the subterranean paradise Eveland.'Ihe "loving ways of the Amazons" that she was sent to teach the world were presumably the wisdom of the matrilineal society that predated the Greeks. "I can make bad men good and weak woman strong!" she says, as she spreads her message of empowerment across "man's world. — Mike Madrid

The peace we seek in the world is not the flimsy peace which is merely an interlude between wars, but a peace which can endure for generations to come. It is important that we understand both the necessity and the limitations of America's role in maintaining that peace. Unless we in America work to preserve the peace, there will be no peace. Unless we in America work to preserve freedom, there will be no freedom. — Richard M. Nixon

China has no choice but to emulate the power of America's founding ideas and its journey through the universal values of democratic freedom and individual rights. — Patrick Mendis

America really is two countries today. One half still loves freedom, and the other half's already socialist, even if they don't call it that - yet. The free half is keeping them from going all the way to having the kind of socialist government they want, but they can't quite shove us out of the way while we've got so many guns. I think that's really what all this is about: once they've got our guns, they'll just pass all their damn socialist laws. They'll just increase our taxes until we're like Sweden, and if we don't like it, tough shit. Anybody that fights back will get a free ride to a special camp for problem children. — Matthew Bracken

AMERICANISM, n. 1) The desire to purge America of all those qualities which make it a more or less tolerable place in which to live; 2) The ability to simultaneously kiss ass, follow your boss's orders, swallow a pay cut, piss in a bottle, cower in fear of job loss, and brag about your freedom. — Ambrose Bierce

Reclamation is hard work. Finding the value in your group's characteristics means always having to confront the darkness in those characteristics. For example, it is acceptable, and productive, to think of America as a great nation. It has many great characteristics, from the freedom it grants its citizens to the cultural contributions it has fostered and rewarded. But by unearthing America's good qualities, you will also find its destructive qualities. The way it has interfered internationally and created death and misery for countless citizens of other nations, its history of genocide and slavery, and so on. It is possible to know America's destructive power and still think it is a great nation. But some prefer not to look at all, so as to avoid the cognitive dissonance. It — Jessa Crispin

Yes, it is hard out there. But hard is relative. I come from a middle-class family, my parents are academics. I was born after the Civil Rights movement, I was a toddler during the women's movement, I live in the United States of America, all of which means I am allowed to own my freedom, my rights, my voice and my uterus. — Shonda Rhimes

To succeed, this movement will have to change our ideals in fundamental ways. It will have to kill off the traditional American dream, the idea of constant striving for a better future, symbolized by the middle-class goal of a rising income and the purchase of a little house with a yard - not to mention the freedom to move where you please, run your life, and govern your town with your neighbors when you get there. Greg Galluzzo, Obama's mentor and the man who created the grassroots crusade that inspired Building One America, dismisses the American dream as a sham. What really makes Americans move to the suburbs, says Galluzzo, is 'racism and greed. — Stanley Kurtz

See we just had a misunderstanding. I thought we lived in the U.S. of A., the United States of America. But actually we live in the U.S. of A., the United States of Advertising. Freedom of expression is guaranteed? If you've got the money! — Bill Hicks

In our struggle against racial segregation in Montgomery, Alabama, I came to see at a very early stage that a synthesis of Gandhi's method of nonviolence and the Christian ethic of love is the best weapon available to Negroes for this struggle for freedom and human dignity. It may well be that the Gandhian approach will bring about a solution to the race problem in America. His spirit is a continual reminder to oppressed people that it is possible to resist evil and yet not resort to violence. — Martin Luther King Jr.

Will they attack us? Yes. Will they smear our backgrounds and distort our records? Undoubtedly. Will they lie about us, harass our families, namecall to try to intimidate us? They will. There's nothing safe about it. But is it worth it? Well, let me ask you. Is freedom worth it? Is America worth it? — Christine O'Donnell

I have written this book with the conviction that the response to injury does not have to be vengeance and that we need to distinguish between revenge and justice. A response other than revenge is possible and desirable. For that to happen, however, we need to turn the moment of injury into a moment of freedom, of choice. For Americans, that means turning 9/11 into an opportunity to reflect on America's place in the world. Grief for victims should not obscure the fact that there is no choice without a debate and no democracy without choice. — Mahmood Mamdani

She held the money to her chest and tried to fathom Alexander's heart. He was the man who, a few meters away from freedom, from America, had chosen to turn his back on his lifelong drea. Feel one way. Behave one way, too. Alexander may have hoped for America, but he believed more in him-self. And he loved Tatiana most of all. Alexander knew who he was.
He was a man who kept his word.
And he had given it to Dimitri. — Paullina Simons

America's indispensable working class existed as property beyond the realm of politics, leaving white Americans free to trumpet their love of freedom and democratic values. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Freedom is a right ultimately defended by the sacrifice of America's servicemen and women. — Arnold Schwarzenegger

This is the real tragedy of America's 'Internet freedom agenda': It's going to be the dissidents in China and Iran who will pay for the hypocrisy that drove it from the very beginning. — Evgeny Morozov

I believe America's best days are ahead of us because I believe that the future belongs to freedom, not to fear. — John F. Kerry

Freedom is on the march in this world. I believe everybody in the Middle East desires to live in freedom. I believe women in the Middle East want to live in a free society. I believe mothers and fathers want to raise their children in a free and peaceful world. I believe all these things, because freedom is not America's gift to the world, freedom is the almighty God's gift to each man and woman in this world. — George W. Bush

Ultimately, America's answer to the intolerant man is diversity, the very diversity which our heritage of religious freedom has inspired. — Robert F. Kennedy

It is the everlasting disgrace of the Clinton Administration that it has chosen to betray America's heritage as a beacon of freedom, and instead to act as the ally and agent of a police state in retrieving one of its prisoners. — David Horowitz

The Constitution does not guarantee freedom of worship. It guarantees freedom of religion. And this is what I call America's first freedom. — Rick Warren

Conventional wisdom would have one believe that it is insane to resist this, the mightiest of empires, but what history really shows is that today's empire is tomorrow's ashes; that nothing lasts forever, and that to not resist is to acquiesce in your own oppression. The greatest form of sanity that anyone can exercise is to resist that force that is trying to repress, oppress, and fight down the human spirit. — Mumia Abu-Jamal

I hate America. I hate this country. It's just big ideas, and stories, and people dying, and people like you. The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word 'free' to a note so high nobody can reach it. That was deliberate. Nothing on earth sounds less like freedom to me. You come to room 1013 over at the hospital, I'll show you America. Terminal, crazy and mean. I live in America, that's hard enough, I don't have to love it. You do that. Everybody's got to love something. — Tony Kushner

They are for 'freedom' when it is freedom to kill third-term fetuses or engage in same-sex marriages or stuff coke up their noses; they do not define freedom as anything to do with captive peoples around the world having the chance to escape the tyrannies that constrain them. They like Fidel because he is a thorn in America's side and a sort of dime-store existentialist, and they rhapsodize about his spreading of literacy in Cuba without considering the fact that at the same time that he teaches people to read he tortures writers like Armando Valladares whose books he doesn't like. — David Horowitz

That's the miracle of America. Freedom to believe means the freedom to believe the wrong thing, after all. Just as freedom of speech gives you the right to stay silent." The — Neil Gaiman

I know people who are embarrassed to be American. They don't like showing their passports. It's becoming a scary place. It takes someone very brave not to be quiet, someone who doesn't mind death threats, their life being turned upside down, news cameras outside their door. There is no freedom of speech in America anymore. They are not living up to the constitution. There's so much fear in America and control. — Gillian Anderson

The true meaning of America, you ask? It's in a Texas rodeo, in a policeman's badge, in the sound of laughing children, in a political rally, in a newspaper ... In all these things, and many more, you'll find America. In all these things, you'll find freedom. And freedom is what America means to the world. And to me. — Audie Murphy

America's foreign policy supports freedom, democracy, and human dignity for all mankind, and we make no apologies for it. The opportunity society that we want for ourselves we also want for others, not because we're imposing our system on others but because those opportunities belong to all people as God-given birthrights and because by promoting democracy and economic opportunity we make peace more secure. — Ronald Reagan

I can say now: all the combatants who participated in the fight for freedom in South America came to Algeria; it's from there that all those who fought left. We trained them, we arranged for the weapons to reach them, we created networks. — Ahmed Ben Bella

America was founded by religious people, devout people who came here because they wanted freedom of religion. It's what made America different from every other country. — Rick Warren

America is the one place in the world where I just innately understood [that] South Africa and the United States of America have a very similar history. It's different timelines, but the directions we've taken and the consequences - dealing with the aftermath of what we consider to be democracy, and realizing that freedom is just the beginning of the conversation, that's something I've learned. — Trevor Noah

She looked at her note cards and took a breath. Why I Love America, by Hayley McDonald's. America is the greatest group of countries in the world because we have freedom. In countries like France, where the Government isn't privatized, they still have to pay tax and do whatever the Government says, which would really suck. In USA countries, we respect individual rights and let people do whatever they want. — Max Barry

If the cruelties of slavery could not stop us, the opposition we now face will surely fail. Because the goal of America is freedom, abused and scorned tho' we may be, our destiny is tied up with America's destiny. — Martin Luther King Jr.

You have to make your own decisions. That's what the freedom in America is all about. — Richard Simmons

The secret point of money and power in America is neither the things that money can buy nor power for power's sake but absolute personal freedom, mobility, privacy. — Joan Didion

America must remain freedom's staunchest friend, for freedom is our best ally and it is the world's only hope to conquer poverty and preserve peace. — Ronald Reagan

Today, the government of a free Afghanistan is fighting terror, Pakistan is capturing terrorist leaders, Saudi Arabia is making raids and arrests, Libya is dismantling its weapons programs, the army of a free Iraq is fighting for freedom, and more than three-quarters of al-Qaida's key members and associates have been detained or killed. We have led, many have joined, and America and the world are safer. — George W. Bush

The comparison might strike you as farfetched. What (you might be asking) can a Broadway musical possibly add to the legacy of a Founding Father--a giant of our national life, a war hero, a scholar, a statesman? What's one little play, or even one very big play, next to all that?
But there is more than one way to change the world . To secure their freedom, the polyglot American colonists had to come together, and stick together, in the face of enormous adversity. To live in a new way, they first had to think and feel in a new way. It took guns and ships to win the American Revolution, but it also required pamphlets and speeches--and at least one play. — Jeremy McCarter

As a matter of face, Zen is at present most fashionable in America among those who are least concerned with moral discipline. Zen has, indeed, become for us a symbol of moral revolt. It is true, the Zen-man's contempt for conventional and formalistic social custom is a healthy phenomenon, but it is healthy only because it presupposes a spiritual liberty based on freedom from passion, egotism and self-delusion. A pseudo-Zen attitude which seeks to justify a complete moral collapse with a few rationalizations based on the Zen Masters is only another form of bourgeois self-deception. It is not an expression of healthy revolt, but only another aspect of the same lifeless and inert conventionalism against which it appears to be protesting. — Thomas Merton

If you say, I'm living in America and I have freedom of speech but I choose not to use it because it's going to cost me, well, you're not living in freedom. You're not free. — Tim Robbins

Vast quantities of U.S. bombers, tanks and guns have been sent against Ho Chi Minh and his freedom-fighters; and now we are told that soon it will be 'advisable' to send America GI's into Indo-China in order that the tin, rubber and tungsten of Southeast Asia be kept by the "free world"-meaning white Imperialism . — Paul Robeson

Nite Owl II: But the country's disintegrating. What's happened to America? What's happened to the American dream?
The Comedian: It came true. You're lookin' at it. — Alan Moore

I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in - and the West in general - into an unbearable hell and a choking life. — Osama Bin Laden

America's greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive. — John W. Gardner

America's Christian conservative movement is confronted with this divide: small-government advocates who want to practice their faith independent of heavy-handed government versus big-government sympathizers who want to impose their version of 'righteousness' on others through the hammer of law ... Our movement must avoid the temptations of power and those who would twist the good intentions of Christian voters to support policies that undermine freedom and grow government. — Dick Armey

I welcome this chance to further strengthen the unbreakable ties between the United States and Israel and to assure you of our commitment to Israel's security and well-being. Israel and America may be thousands of miles apart, but we are philosophical neighbors sharing a strong commitment to democracy and the rule of law. What we hold in common are the bonds of trust and friendship, qualities that in our eyes make Israel a great nation. No people have fought longer, struggled harder, or sacrificed more than yours in order to survive, to grow, and to live in freedom — Ronald Reagan

Dan Brister's book bears witness to the last fifteen years of this bureaucratic madness to tame the last vestige of wild America and domesticate the earth. Leading the resistance is the Buffalo Field Campaign, a brave, dedicated group of activists. This hardy tribe lives out in the cold winters of Yellowstone, risking their freedom and lives to stand by their brown brethren in the hair coats. — Doug Peacock

In America it's live by the sword of freedom of expression and be will to die by it as well. — Vince McMahon

We have not enjoyed unmolested those rights which the constitution of the U.S.A. and our Charters grant. — Joseph Smith Jr.

The growth of entrepreneurial classes throughout the world is an asset in the promotion of human rights and individual liberty, and it should be understood and used as such. Yet peace is the first and most important condition for continued prosperity and freedom. America's military power must be secure because the United States is the only guarantor of global peace and stability. The current neglect of America's armed forces threatens its ability to maintain peace. — Condoleezza Rice

Now we understand much more clearly. why people from all over the world want to come to New York and to America. It's called freedom. — Rudy Giuliani

America's biggest problem is too much freedom. — Bikram Choudhury

Jerry Falwell knows who caused the terrorist attack on America: the ACLU. "The ACLU's got to take a lot of blame for this," he declared on the 700 Club, because, he explained, the ACLU, abetted by the federal courts is responsible for "throwing God out of the public square (and) the public schools."This is a familiar charge and a false one. God is still present in the public schools, where students are free to pray, alone or in groups, so long as their prayers aren't officially sponsored and don't infringe on anyone's freedom not to pray. — Wendy Kaminer

America is a place of opportunity. It's people-friendly! Very much so, compared to the Muslim countries in the world. People looking for better lives flock to America because we as a society do not mutilate young girls' genitals, do not cut off people's hands for stealing. We do not stone people to death for committing adultery. We do not rape women and men for speaking up against our government. We do not forbid people to go to school and to learn because of their gender. We assume people are innocent until proven guilty. We give people the freedom to criticize our government and even burn our flag as an expression of speech. This is but a partial list of why America is superior in culture and values to many other countries in the world. This type of culture also thrives in Israel, the only Western-style nation in the Middle East, one that Arabs despise, feel threatened by, and vow to destroy. — Brigitte Gabriel

At the root of everything that we're trying to accomplish is the belief that America has a mission. We are a nation of freedom, living under God, believing all citizens must have the opportunity to grow, create wealth, and build a better life for those who follow. If we live up to those moral values, we can keep the American dream alive for our children and our grandchildren, and America will remain mankind's best hope. — Ronald Reagan

We live in a country where we're supposed to have freedom of the press and religious freedom, but I think to some degree, there's a sense of fear in America today, that if you say the wrong thing, what some people will consider what is wrong, if you step out of line, if you dissent, whether you be an entertainer, that somehow and some way this government or the forces to be will come down on you. — John Lewis

A man is entitled to say whatever he wants to say. It's America, freedom of speech. — Reggie Evans

Watching President Obama apologize last week for America's arrogance - before a French audience that owes its freedom to the sacrifices of Americans - helped convince me that he has a deep-seated antipathy toward American values and traditions. — Rick Santorum

We're entering our third century now, but it's wrong to judge our nation by its years. The calendar can't measure America because we were meant to be an endless experiment in freedom, with no limits to our reaches, no boundaries to what we can do, no end point to our hopes. — Ronald Reagan

Freedom is always just one generation away from extinction. We don't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. We have to fight for it and protect it and then hand it to them, so that they shall do the same, or we're going to find ourselves spending our sunset years telling our children and our children's children, about a time in America, back in the day, when men and women were free. — Ronald Reagan

After September 11th, freedom of speech in America has become a topic that's touchier than a Vatican summer camp. — Dennis Miller

America's freedom of religion, and freedom from religion, offers every wisdom tradition an opportunity to address our soul-deep needs: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, secular humanism, agnosticism and atheism among others. — Parker Palmer

Freedom in every sense but primarily political sense, a rise in repression that stems from a repression of sexuality. It's AIDS, it's herpes, it's this, it's that. Ask any saloon owner what's happened to social life in America and they'll tell you it's a different world and these people are strongly misinformed by the media, peer pressure. — Jack Nicholson

We call our country home of the brave and land of the free, but it's not. We give a false portrayal of freedom. We're not free - if we were, we'd allow people their freedom. Prohibiting something doesn't make it go away. Prostitution is criminal, and bad things happen because it's run illegally by dirt-bags who are criminals. If it's legal, then the girls could have health checks, unions, benefits, anything any other worker gets, and it would be far better. — Jesse Ventura

The whole world depends on America ultimately, particularly Britain. And also, I love America - a marvelous country. But in a sense I don't worry about America because I think America has such huge strengths - particularly its freedom of thought and expression - that it's going to survive as a top nation for the foreseeable future. — Paul Johnson

For over 220 years, Marines have served at the end of America's operational reach - on freedom's far frontiers. These Marines are the backbone of the ARG/MEU (SOC) team, our regional commanders' force of choice for both forward presence and crisis response. — Tom Clancy

That's what's great about America: that our freedom of religion allows me to interpret the Bible exactly how it fits my worldview already. — Stephen Colbert

A bunch of bong-smoking, America-bashing, flag-burning, yoga-posing, incense-burning, dolphin-saving, salmon-eating hypocrites. These are the sensitive, liberal people who are always yelling about people's freedom of speech and expression, unless you happen to say something that pisses them off. — Richard Jeni

Fear and hatred are the legacy of Ronald Reagan. America's vision of peace and freedom [is being] blasted by the guns of the U.S. Navy in Lebanon, the guns of U.S. paratroopers in Grenada, and the guns of U.S. helicopters in Honduras and El Salvador. — Alan Cranston

Calvin: Somewhere in Communist Russia I'll bet there's a little boy who has never known anything but censorship and oppression. But maybe he's heard of America, and he dreams of living in this land of freedom and opportunity! Someday, I'd like to meet that little boy ... and tell him the awful TRUTH ABOUT THIS PLACE!! Calvin's Dad: Calvin, be quiet and eat the stupid lima beans. — Bill Watterson

Hope is what led a band of colonists to rise up against an empire; what led the greatest of generations to free a continent and heal a nation; what led young women and young men to sit at lunch counters and brave fire hoses and march through Selma and Montgomery for freedom's cause. Hope is what led me here today
with a father from Kenya, a mother from Kansas; and a story that could only happen in the United States of America. Hope is the bedrock of this nation; the belief that our destiny will not be written for us, but by us; by all those men and women who are not content to settle for the world as it is; who have courage to remake the world as it should be. [January 3, 2008] — Barack Obama

We can take full comfort in realizing the continuing strength of our nation. America's lands remain radiantly rich with diversity, and freedom still reigns. — Ben Nelson

But before we cue the brass section to blare "The Stars and Stripes Forever," it might be worth taking another moment of melancholy silence to mourn the thwarted reconciliation with the mother country and what might have been. Anyone who accepts the patriots' premise that all men are created equal must come to terms with the fact that the most obvious threat to equality in eighteenth-century North America was not taxation without representation but slavery. Parliament would abolish slavery in the British Empire in 1833, thirty years before President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. A return to the British fold in 1776 might have freed American slaves three decades sooner, which is what, a generation and a half? Was independence for some of us more valuable than freedom for all of us? As the former slave Frederick Douglass put it in an Independence Day speech in 1852, "This is your Fourth of July, not mine. — Sarah Vowell

I think of America not so much as a single country but as a constellation of groups out there competing for air time, energetically expressing themselves and luxuriating in their right to govern themselves. Freedom is that great vaunted word that's always applied to our country - and rightly so. — Hampton Sides

This, then, is the legacy of January 1973. The "me generation" found its voice, religion became a political force, poverty and civil rights became someone else's problem, and the national will for concerted action for the common good of all its citizens was scattered into "a thousand points of light."

At some point, perhaps those scattered lights will re-form and reunite to give birth to a rededicated nation, one that includes a place for everyone, opportunity for all, and help for those who need it. After all, it only takes a moment in time and some simultaneity. As Lyndon Johnson so aptly observed in his greatest speech - the "We Shall Overcome" speech - there are times in America when "history and fate meet at a single time in a single space to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom."

Let us hop such a time is nearing. — James Robenalt

As I see it, a person's culture represents his appraisal of the things that make up his life. And a fellow becomes cultured, I believe, by selecting that which is fine and beautiful in life and throwing aside that which is mediocre or phony. Sort of a series of free, very personal choices, you might say. If this is true, then I think it follows that 'freedom' is the most precious word to culture. Freedom to believe what you choose and read, think and say and be with what you choose. In America, we are guaranteed these freedoms. It is the constitutional privilege of every American to become cultured or to grow up like Donald Duck. I believe that this spiritual and intellectual freedom, which we Americans enjoy, is our greatest cultural blessing. Therefore, it seems to me, that the first duty of culture is to defend freedom and resist all tyranny. — Walt Disney Company

How, then, did Virginia gentlemen persuade the voters to return the right kind of people to the House of Burgesses? How could patricians win in populist politics? The question can lead us again to the paradox which has underlain our story, the union of freedom and slavery in Virginia and America. — Edmund S. Morgan

From the beginning, Judeo-Christian principles have been the foundation for American public dialogue and government policy. They serve as the solid basis for political activism in support of a better socioeconomic environment. Found in American homes, truth from the Hebrew Christian Bible has enabled individual liberty to prevail over secular empires because it is a practical message about reality from man's Creator.
In their quest for liberty, Americans focused upon the conspicuously self-evident "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God." It is the governing character of these principles (laws), such as humility, the Golden Rule, and the Ten Commandments, that leads to success. This is the sure foundation upon which man's right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" rests. Called "virtue" by America's Founding Fathers, the impartial and divine element frees man to do what is right. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty" (2 Cor. 3:17). — David A. Norris

Could we not argue that America is about freedom, whether we live it out or not, but it really is about freedom, equality and the pursuit of happiness. And that's what church is all about. — Clementa C. Pinckney

The historic nature of Israel's struggle for self-determination, freedom, and prosperity underscores the gravity of their circumstances and fortifies my commitment to America's responsibility as their ally. — Pete Hegseth

It's certainly not too late to change to the winning side. But you know, you also have the freedom to stay just where you are. That's what it means to be an American. That's the miracle of America. Freedom to believe means the freedom to believe the wrong thing, after all. Just as freedom of speech gives you the right to stay silent. — Neil Gaiman

I've long believed that one of the mainsprings of our own liberty has been the widespread ownership of property among our people and the expectation that anyone's child, even from the humblest of families, could grow up to own a business or a corporation. Thomas Jefferson dreamed of a land of small farmers, of shopowners, and merchants. Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Homestead Act that ensured that the great western prairies of America would be the realm of independent, propertyowning citizens-a mightier guarantee of freedom is difficult to imagine. — Ronald Reagan

Augustine says that you don't understand a nation by the throw weight of its military or the strength of its research universities or the size of its population, but by looking at what it loves in common. To assess a nation, you look at the health and strength of its ideals. And there's no question that the common love in America is freedom. — Os Guinness

Nowhere in politics is there such a mismatch between public and private realm as in transport. Everyone on the M6 last weekend would have agreed with Transport Minister Alasdair Darling's reported hatred of cars. They too wanted drivers off the roads and on to public transport. Go to it, Mr Darling, they cried in unison, get rid of all those cars. Except, of course, their own. Other people's cars are traffic. My car is the outward essence of my being. It is my hat, stick and cane. It embodies my freedom as a citizen and my right as a democrat. My car is my soul in flight. — Simon Jenkins

Our defense of universal human rights is one of America's greatest sources of strength. The image of Chen, blind and injured, seeking through that dangerous night for the one place he knew stood for freedom and opportunity - the embassy of the United States - reminds us of our responsibility to make sure our country remains the beacon for dissidents and dreamers all over the world. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

We have the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. 'America, land of liberty and freedom?' You know, that's baloney. More than 2 million Americans are behind bars now. Communist China has four times the population and they have 1.5 million people behind bars. — Gary Johnson

It's an appeal as old as America and its presidency: This is an extraordinary country populated by hard-working, big-dreaming, freedom-loving people graced by God when they're not pulling themselves up by the bootstraps. — Ron Fournier

The election of a man committed to the cause of freedom and the renewal of America's strength has given encouragement to all those who love liberty. — Margaret Thatcher

At least in America, you have freedom of speech, which is a good thing. It's just a question of whether you're allowed to use it on 'Fox News'. — Eric Idle

Hail, Columbia! happy land! Hail, ye heroes! heaven-born band! Who fought and bled in Freedom's cause. — Joseph Hopkinson

As slaves we were this country's first windfall, the down payment on its freedom. After the ruin and liberation of the Civil War came Redemption for the unrepentant South and Reunion, and our bodies became this country's second mortgage. In the New Deal we were their guestroom, their finished basement. And today, with a sprawling prison system, which has turned the warehousing of black bodies into a jobs program for Dreamers and a lucrative investment for Dreamers; today, when 8 percent of the world's prisoners are black men, our bodies have refinanced the Dream of being white. Black life is cheap, but in America black bodies are a natural resource of incomparable value. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

In 1960, when I came out of prison as an ex-convict, I had more freedom under parolee supervision than there's available ... in America right now. — Merle Haggard

America's commitment to religious freedom and tolerance should not be conditional. — Mark McKinnon

In the Spring of 1962, a white postal worker from Baltimore, William Moore, decided to use his ten-day vacation to showcase his passion for Civil Rights. Moore planned a "Freedom Walk" from Chattanooga, Tennessee, across Alabama, to Jackson, Mississippi, where he would confront Governor Ross Barnett about the injustice of racial segregation. Moore, who had a history of psychiatric illness, entered Alabama wearing signs that read MISSISSIPPI OR BUST, END SEGREGATION IN AMERICA, and EQUAL RIGHTS FOR ALL MEN. The much-publicized march ended tragically, when Moore's body was found on a roadside near Gadsen, Alabama - he had been shot to death. — Jeffrey K. Smith

I believe we must choose the path to faith, freedom and individual liberty. It starts with us, here today, now, Working together, with God's favor, we can save the America that we love. — T.W. Shannon

There's no one here in America swimming the Pacific Ocean - or the Atlantic, or the Caribbean - to leave this place. The reason why is because of the freedom. Freedom for a man to mark out his own destiny. It's not, 'Hey, you have so much.' — Luke Scott

I believe strongly that my books are entertainment. I hope you might learn a thing or two while reading them, but first and foremost, my job is to entertain you. If I'm waving a flag in Hot Target, it's the same flag I've always waved in all my books - the American flag. And that's a flag that's supposed to stand for acceptance and understanding. For freedom for all - and not just freedom for all Americans, but freedom for all of the diverse and wonderful people living on this planet; freedom to live their lives according to their definitions of freedom. It's a flag that's supposed to stand for real American values like honor and honesty and peace and love and hope. — Suzanne Brockmann

America had the message of freedom and democracy, but we haven't actually shown that to be what we do in the world. So I think that's a terrifying thing. — Lesli Linka Glatter

Religious freedom is often referred to as America's first freedom. Our country was founded by religious exiles and built on the belief that God has given all people certain inalienable rights. Government's role in society is to protect these rights and ensure that we are safe from religious persecution and discrimination. — Marco Rubio