This Independence Day take time to appreciate the wisdom that our nation’s founding fathers exhibited and shared. Here are ten short quotes from different signers of the Declaration of Independence that you can read with your family.
1. Never trade liberty for security.
“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” – Benjamin Franklin
2. America was always thought of as exceptional.
“The dons, the bashaws, the grandees, the patricians, the sachems, the nabobs, call them by what names you please, sigh and groan and fret, and sometimes stamp and foam and curse, but all in vain. The decree is gone forth, and it cannot be recalled, that a more equal liberty than has prevailed in other parts of the earth must be established in America.” – John Adams
3. We need to be united.
“We must be unanimous; there must be no pulling different ways; we must hang together.” – John Hancock
4. Always be prepared.
“Let us prepare for the worst. We can die here but once.” — Abraham Clark
5. Be willing to lay down your life for freedom.
“Do you recollect the pensive and awful silence which pervaded the house when we were called up, one after another, to the table of the President of Congress to subscribe what was believed by many at that time to be our own death warrants?” — Benjamin Rush
6. Don’t take your rights for granted.
“Let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.” — Thomas Jefferson
7. Take time to reflect.
“I always considered an idle Life, as a real evil, but, a life of such hurry, such constant hurry, leaves us scarcely a moment for reflection or for the discharge of any other then the most immediate and pressing concerns.” – Edward Rutledge
8. Being a nation of laws provides security.
“The great object of a free people must be so to form their government and laws, and so to administer them, as to create a confidence in, and respect for, the laws; and thereby induce the sensible and virtuous part of the community to declare in favor of the laws and to support them without an expensive military force.” – Richard Henry Lee
9. Arguing with an unreasonable person is a waste of time.
“To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.” – Thomas Paine
10. Be bold and speak the truth.
“Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare the truth thou hast, that all may share; Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare.” – Lewis Morris
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