Published in the High Desert Advocate July 2nd, 2021 Edition.
Published in the High Desert Advocate July 2nd, 2021 Edition.
4th of July Thoughts That’ll Help You Celebrate and Reflect on America
Famous quotes by men who have changed U.S. history
1. “I have no other view than to promote the public good, and am unambitious of honors not founded in the approbation of my country.” — George Washington.
2. “Diligence is the mother of good luck.” — Benjamin Franklin.
3. “Give me liberty, or give me death!” — Patrick Henry.
4. “Determine never to be idle … It is wonderful how much may be done if we are always doing.” — Thomas Jefferson.
5. “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” — Abraham Lincoln.
6. “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” — Theodore Roosevelt.
7. “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” — J. Robert Oppenheimer, who is the father of the atomic bomb.
8. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
9. “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” — Ronald Reagan.
10. “You are either with us, or against us.” — George W. Bush.
Perhaps not as widely repeated but of equal importance are quotes from Alexis de Tocqueville. The French political thinker and historian (1805-1859) is best known for his two volumes in 1835 and 1840 on “Democracy in America” written following his travels in the United States. After democracies in Europe had failed, he visited the United States to see the young democracy and explore the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on the individual and the state of Western societies.
Nearly 200 years later some of his observations are extremely pertinent:
“The American republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”
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“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
“America is great because she is good. If America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” “I do not know if the people of the United States would vote for superior men if they ran for office, but there can be no doubt that such men do not run.”
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“When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education … the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint. … It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold … they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters.”
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“There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.”
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“Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom, socialism restricts it. Democracy attaches all possible value to each man; socialism makes each man a mere agent, a mere number. Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.”
