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July 4

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Quotes of the day from previous years:

2004
"...for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." ~ closing lines of The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States Of America written primarily by Thomas Jefferson, and approved as an official document of united will and determination, July 4, 1776.
  • selected by Kalkifuckkk you demet putang ina nio papatayin q keong dalawa


2005
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, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ~ United States Declaration of Independence
2006
It contributes greatly towards a man's moral and intellectual health, to be brought into habits of companionship with individuals unlike himself, who care little for his pursuits, and whose sphere and abilities he must go out of himself to appreciate. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne (born 4 July 1804)
2007
The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
2008
Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
2009
Every individual has a place to fill in the world, and is important, in some respect, whether he chooses to be so or not. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
2010
The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the truest heroism is, to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
2011
Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. ~ Thomas Jefferson in the US Declaration of Independence
2012
So many out-of-the-way things had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible.
~ Lewis Carroll ~
in
~ Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ~
  • proposed by Kalki (First version of the story of Alice first told upon 4 July 1862, and first published on 4 July 1865)
2013
Well, if I eat it, and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door: so either way I'll get into the garden, and I don't care which happens!
~ Lewis Carroll ~
in
~ Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ~
  • proposed by Kalki (First version of the story of Alice first told upon 4 July 1862, and first published on 4 July 1865)
2014
Thou warden of the western gate, above Manhattan Bay,
The fogs of doubt that hid thy face are driven clean away:
Thine eyes at last look far and clear, thou liftest high thy hand
To spread the light of liberty world-wide for every land.
…
Oh, come as comes the morn.
Serene and strong and full of faith, America, arise,
With steady hope and mighty help to join thy brave Allies.
O dearest country of my heart, home of the high desire,
Make clean thy soul for sacrifice on Freedom’s altar-fire:
For thou must suffer, thou must fight, until the warlords cease,
And all the peoples lift their heads in liberty and peace.
~ Henry van Dyke ~
2015
"It was much pleasanter at home," thought poor Alice, "when one wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and rabbits. I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit-hole — and yet — and yet — it's rather curious, you know, this sort of life! I do wonder what can have happened to me! When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of thing never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one! There ought to be a book written about me, that there ought! And when I grow up, I'll write one."
~ Lewis Carroll ~
in
~ Alice's Adventures in Wonderland ~
2016
Let us cast off our hatreds. Let us candidly accept our treaties and our natural obligations of peace. We know and everyone knows that these old systems, antagonisms, and reliance on force have failed. If the world has made any progress, it has been the result of the development of other ideals. If we are to maintain and perfect our own civilization, if we are to be of any benefit to the rest of mankind, we must turn aside from the thoughts of destruction and cultivate the thoughts of construction. We can not place our main reliance upon material forces. We must reaffirm and reinforce our ancient faith in truth and justice, in charitableness and tolerance. We must make our supreme commitment to the everlasting spiritual forces of life. We must mobilize the conscience of mankind.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~
2017
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
~ Thomas Jefferson ~
in
~ The US Declaration of Independence ~
2018
Let us forget the other names of American statesmen, that have been stamped upon these hills, but still call the loftiest — WASHINGTON. Mountains are Earth's undecaying monuments. They must stand while she endures, and never should be consecrated to the mere great men of their own age and country, but to the mighty ones alone, whose glory is universal, and whom all time will render illustrious.
~ Nathaniel Hawthorne ~
  • proposed by Kalki, for Hawthorne's birthday, and reference to a primary founder of the first American democratic republic on it's Independence Day.
2019
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 ~
2020
Something in all human beings makes them want to do the right thing. Not that this desire always prevails; oftentimes it is overcome and they turn towards evil. But some power is constantly calling them back. Ever there comes a resistance to wrongdoing. When bad conditions begun to accumulate, when the forces of darkness become prevalent, always they are ultimately doomed to fail, as the better angels of human nature are roused to resistance.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~
2021
All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately, by the grace of God. These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.
~ Thomas Jefferson ~
2022
Democracy is not a tearing down; it is a building up. It is not denial of the divine right of kings; it supplements that same with the assertion of the divine right of all men. It does not destroy; it fulfills. It is the consummation of all theories of government, the spirit of which all the nations of the earth must yield. It is the great constructive course of the ages. It is the alpha and omega of man's relation to man, the beginning and the end. There is, and can be, no more doubt of the triumphs of democracy in human affairs than there is of the triumph of gravitation in the physical world. The only question is how and when. Its foundation lays hold upon eternity.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~
2023
The Declaration of Independence predicated upon the glory of man and the corresponding duty to society that the rights of citizens ought to be protected with every power and resource of the state, and a government that does any less is false to the teachings of that great document — false to the name American. The assertion of human rights is naught but a call to human sacrifice. This is yet the spirit of the American people. Only so long as this flame burns shall we endure, and the light of liberty be shed over the nations of the earth.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~
2024
We are not likely to improve our own condition or help humanity very much until we come to the sympathetic understanding that human nature is about the same everywhere, that it is rather evenly distributed over the surface of the earth, and that we are all united in a common brotherhood. We can only make America first in the true sense which that means by cultivating a spirit of friendship and good will, by the exercise of the virtues of patience and forbearance, by being "plenteous in mercy," and through progress at home and helpfulness abroad standing as an example of real service to humanity.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~
2025
Rank or add further suggestions…

Quotes by people born this day, already used as QOTD:

  • Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a deathlike slumber, must always create sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Ranking system:

4 : Excellent - should definitely be used.
3 : Very Good - strong desire to see it used.
2 : Good - some desire to see it used.
1 : Acceptable - but with no particular desire to see it used.
0 : Not acceptable - not appropriate for use as a quote of the day.

Suggestions

[edit]

There are two Americas. One is the America of Lincoln and Adlai Stevenson; the other is the America of Teddy Roosevelt and the modern superpatriots. One is generous and humane, the other narrowly egotistical; one is self-critical, the other self-righteous; one is sensible, the other romantic; one is good-humored, the other solemn; one is inquiring, the other pontificating; one is moderate, the other filled with passionate intensity; one is judicious and the other arrogant in the use of great power." ~ J. William Fulbright, The Arrogance of Power, 1966 (United States independence)

  • 3 ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 08:25, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
  • 1 121a0012 June 27, 2005 03:52 (UTC) (I'm a bit uncomfortable with this one on this particular day.)
  • 1 Kalki 30 June 2005 21:48 (UTC)
  • 1 Aphaia 3 July 2005 02:27 (UTC) not only problematic, but a bit long.
  • 1 Jeff Q (talk) 16:32, 3 July 2007 (UTC). I love this quote even more than last year, but it still sounds too partisan for a good QotD.
  • 2 InvisibleSun 17:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
  • 2 Zarbon 04:58, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 2 //Gbern3 (talk) 00:22, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

What would a man do, if he were compelled to live always in the sultry heat of society, and could never bathe himself in cool solitude? ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

The definitions of humanism are many, but let us here take it to be the attitude of those men who think it an advantage to live in society, and, at that, in a complex and highly developed society, and who believe that man fulfills his nature and reaches his proper stature in this circumstance. The personal virtues which humanism cherishes are intelligence, amenity, and tolerance; the particular courage it asks for is that which is exercised in the support of these virtues. The qualities of intelligence which it chiefly prizes are modulation and flexibility. ~ Lionel Trilling (born July 4, 1905)

  • 4 InvisibleSun 17:11, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
  • 3 Kalki 21:32, 3 July 2007 (UTC) with a strong lean toward 4.
  • 1 Zarbon 04:58, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
  • 1 //Gbern3 (talk) 00:22, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

We properly judge a critic's virtue not by his freedom from error but by the nature of the mistakes he does make, for he makes them, if he is worth reading, because he has in mind something besides his perceptions about art in itself — he has in mind the demands that he makes upon life. ~ Lionel Trilling

In most countries in the world, your fate and your identity are handed to you; in America, you determine them for yourself. America is a country where you get to write the script of your own life. ~ Dinesh D'Souza

There is no substitute for a militant freedom. The only alternative is submission and slavery.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

To live under the American constitution is the greatest political privilege that was ever accorded to the human race.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

2.75. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

In the case of a people which represents many nations, cultures and races, as does our own, a unification of interests and ideals in recreations is bound to wield a telling influence for solidarity of the entire population. No more truly democratic force can be set off against the tendency to class and caste than the democracy of individual parts and prowess in sport.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

American citizenship is a high estate. He who holds it is the peer of kings. It has been secured only by untold toil and effort. It will be maintained by no other method. It demands the best that men and women have to give. But it likewise awards to its partakers the best that there is on earth. To attempt to turn it into a thing of ease and inaction would be only to debase it. To cease to struggle and toil and sacrifice for it is not only to cease to be worthy of it but is to start a retreat toward barbarism. No matter what others may say, no matter what others may do, this is the stand that those must maintain who are worthy to be called Americans.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

2.75. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

The accomplishments of the colored people in the United States, in the brief historic period since they were brought here from the restrictions of their native continent, can not but make us realize that there is something essential in our civilization which gives it a special power.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

2.75. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

The progress of the colored people on this continent is one of the marvels of modern history. We are perhaps even yet too near to this phenomenon to be able fully to appreciate its significance. That can be impressed on us only as we study and contrast the rapid advancement of the colored people in America with the slow and painful upward movement of humanity as a whole throughout the long human story.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

A view of the history of the Negro race in America, we may find the evidences that the black man's probation on this continent was a necessary part in a great plan by which the race was to be saved to the world for a service which we are now able to vision and, even if yet somewhat dimly, to appreciate. The destiny of the great African continent, to be added at length — and in a future not now far beyond us — to the realms of the highest civilization, has become apparent within a very few decades
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

2.75. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

This race is to be preserved for a great and useful work. If some of its members have suffered, if some have been denied, if some have been sacrificed, we are able at last to realize that their sacrifices were borne in a great cause. They gave vicariously, that a vastly greater number might be preserved and benefited through them. The salvation of a race, the destiny of a continent, were bought at the price of these sacrifices.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

2.75. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Looking back only a few years, we appreciate how rapid has been the progress of the colored people on this continent. Emancipation brought them the opportunity of which they have availed themselves.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

2.75. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

The Negro community of America has already so far progressed that its members can be assured that their future is in their own hands. Racial hostility, ancient tradition, and social prejudice are not to be eliminated immediately or easily, but they will be lessened as the colored people by their own efforts and under their own leaders shall prove worthy of the fullest measure of opportunity.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

The colored people have repeatedly proved their devotion to the high ideals of our country. They gave their services in the war with the same patriotism and readiness that other citizens did. The records of the selective draft show that somewhat more than 2,250,000 colored men were registered. The records further prove that, far from seeking to avoid participation in the national defense, they showed that they wished to enlist before the selective service act was put into operation, and they did not attempt to evade that act afterwards.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

The propaganda of prejudice and hatred which sought to keep the colored men from supporting the national cause completely failed. The black man showed himself the same kind of citizen, moved by the same kind of patriotism, as the white man. They were tempted, but not one betrayed his country. Among well-nigh 400,000 colored men who were taken into the military service, about one-half had overseas experience. They came home with many decorations and their conduct repeatedly won high commendation.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

4. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

No part of the community responded more willingly, more generously, more unqualifiedly, to the demand for special extraordinary exertion, than did the members of the Negro race. Whether in the military service, or in the vast mobilization of industrial resources which the war required, the Negro did his part precisely as did the white man. He drew no color line when patriotism made its call upon him. He gave precisely as his white fellow citizens gave, to the limit of resources and abilities, to help the general cause. Thus the American Negro established his right to the gratitude and appreciation which the nation has been glad to accord.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Your race is entitled to great praise for the contribution it makes in doing the work of the world.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

2.75. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

During the war, 500,000 colored men and boys were called up under the draft, not one of whom sought to evade it. They took their places wherever assigned in defense of the nation of which they are just as truly citizens as are any others. The suggestion of denying any measure of their full political rights to such a great group of our population as the colored people is one which, however it might be received in some other quarters, could not possibly be permitted by one who feels a responsibility for living up to the traditions and maintaining the principles of the Republican Party.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Our Constitution guarantees equal rights to all our citizens, without discrimination on account of race or color. I have taken my oath to support that Constitution. It is the source of your rights and my rights. I propose to regard it, and administer it, as the source of the rights of all the people, whatever their belief or race.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

A colored man is precisely as much entitled to submit his candidacy in a party primary, as is any other citizen. The decision must be made by the constituents to whom he offers himself, and by nobody else.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

America is a large country. It is a tolerant country. It has room within its borders for many races and many creeds. But it has no room for those who would place the interests of some other nation above the interests of our own nation.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

American government was the result of an effort to establish institutions under which the people as a whole should have the largest possible advantages. Class and privilege were outlawed, freedom and opportunity were guaranteed. They undertook to provide conditions under which service would be adequately rewarded, and where the people would own their own property and control their own government. They had no other motive. They were actuated by no other purpose.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

2.75. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3.25. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Americans are not visionary, they are not sentimentalists. They want idealism, but they want it to be practical, they want it to produce results.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

2.75. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Our inhabitants are especially free to promote their own welfare. They are unburdened by militarism. They are not called upon to support any imperialistic designs. Every mother can rest in the assurance that her children will find here a land of devotion, prosperity and peace. The tall shaft near which we are gathered and yonder stately memorial remind us that our standards of manhood are revealed in the adoration which we pay to Washington and Lincoln. They are unrivaled and unsurpassed. Above all else, they are Americans.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

2.75. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

This American community have been blessed with an unparalleled capacity for assimilating peoples of varying races and nations. The continuing migration which in three centuries has established here this nation of more than a hundred million, has been the greatest that history records as taking place in any such brief period.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

It is one of the anomalies of the human story that these peoples, who could not be assimilated and unified under the skies of Europe, should on coming to America discover an amazing genius for cooperation, for fusion, and for harmonious effort. Yet they were the same people when they came here that they had been on the other side of the Atlantic. Quite apparently, they found something in our institutions, something in the American system of government and society which they themselves helped to construct, that furnished to all of them a political and cultural common denominator.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3.25. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Place first, the broadly tolerant attitude that has been a characteristic of this country. I use the word in its most inclusive sense, to cover tolerance of religious opinion, tolerance in politics, tolerance in social relationships; in general, the liberal attitude of every citizen toward his fellows. It is this factor which has preserved to all of us that equality of opportunity which enables every American to become the architect of whatever fortune he deserves.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3.25. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

As a nation, our first duty must be to those who are already our inhabitants, whether native or immigrants. To them we owe an especial and a weighty obligation. They came to us with stout hearts and high hopes of bettering their estate. They have contributed much to making our country what it is. They magnificently proved their loyalty by contributing their full part when the war made demand for sacrifices by all Americans.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

It is our earnest wish to cooperate and to help in every possible way in restoring the unfortunate countries of the Old World. We want to help them to rid themselves of the bad traditions, the ancient animosities, the long established hostilities. We want our America to continue an example and a demonstration that peace, harmony, cooperation and a truly national patriotic sentiment may be established and perpetuated on an American scale.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

There is abundant room here for the preservation and development of the many divergent virtues that are characteristic of the different races which have made America their home. They ought to cling to all these virtues and cultivate them tenaciously. It is my own belief that in this land of freedom new arrivals should especially keep up their devotion.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

I know that there is no better American spirit than that which is exhibited by many of those who have recently come to our shores.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

It is my belief that those who live here and really want to help some other country, can best accomplish that result by making themselves truly and wholly American. I mean by that, giving their first allegiance to this country and always directing their actions in a course which will be first of all for the best interests of this country. They cannot help other nations by bringing old world race prejudices and race hatreds into action here. In fact, they can best help other countries by scrupulously avoiding any such motives.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

The spirit of America is to help everybody and injure nobody. We can be in a position to help only by unifying the American nation, building it up, making it strong, keeping it independent, using its inclination to help and its disclination to injure. Those who cast in their lot with this country can be true to the land of their origin only by first being true to America. When the public sees and realizes that racial groups here are first of all devoted to the interests of this country, there will be little difficulty in securing here the present needed help and assistance for the countries of the old world.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Let us keep our desire to help other lands as a great and broad principle, not to help in one place and do harm in another, but to render assistance everywhere. Let us remember also that the best method of promoting this action is by giving undivided allegiance to America, maintaining its institutions, supporting its Government, and, by leaving it internally harmonious, making it eternally powerful in promoting a reign of justice and mercy throughout the earth.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Developments have brought about a very remarkable improvement in the condition of the Negro race. Gradually, but surely, with the almost universal sympathy of those among whom they live, the colored people are working out their own destiny. I firmly believe that it is better for all concerned that they should be cheerfully accorded their full constitutional rights, that they should be protected from all of those impositions to which, from their position, they naturally fall a prey, especially from the crime of lynching and that they should receive every encouragement to become full partakers in all the blessings of our common American citizenship.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

It will be impossible for the people to provide their own government unless they continue to own their own property. These are the very foundations of America. On them has been erected a Government of freedom and equality, of justice and mercy, of education and charity. Living under it and supporting it the people have come into great possessions on the material and spiritual sides of life. I want to continue in this direction.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

The chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

The chief ideal of the American people is idealism. I cannot repeat too often that America is a nation of idealists. That is the only motive to which they ever give any strong and lasting reaction.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Our people were influenced by many motives to undertake to carry on this gigantic conflict, but we went in and came out singularly free from those questionable causes and results which have often characterized other wars. We were not moved by the age-old antagonisms of racial jealousies and hatreds. We were not seeking to gratify the ambitions of any reigning dynasty. We were not inspired by trade and commercial rivalries. We harbored no imperialistic designs. We feared no other country. We coveted no territory.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

2.75. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Though of many different nationalities, our people had a spiritual bond. They were all Americans.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3.25. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

All the races, religions, and nationalities of the world were represented in the armed forces of this nation, as they were in the body of our population. No man's patriotism was impugned or service questioned because of his racial origin, his political opinion, or his religious convictions. Immigrants and sons of immigrants from the central European countries fought side by side with those who descended from the countries which were our allies; with the sons of equatorial Africa; and with the red men of our own aboriginal population, all of them equally proud of the name Americans.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

There are true Americans who did not happen to be born in our section of the country, who do not attend our place of religious worship, who are not of our racial stock, or who are not proficient in our language. If we are to create on this continent a free republic and an enlightened civilization that will be capable of reflecting the true greatness and glory of mankind, it will be necessary to regard these differences as accidental and unessential. We shall have to look beyond the outward manifestations of race and creed. Divine providence has not bestowed upon any race a monopoly of patriotism and character.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

4. A bit long, but great message. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

The generally expressed desire of 'America first' can not be criticized. It is a perfectly correct aspiration for our people to cherish. But the problem which we have to solve is how to make America first. It can not be done by the cultivation of national bigotry, arrogance, or selfishness. Hatreds, jealousies, and suspicions will not be productive of any benefits in this direction. Here again we must apply the rule of toleration. Because there are other peoples whose ways are not our ways, and whose thoughts are not our thoughts, we are not warranted in drawing the conclusion that they are adding nothing to the sum of civilization. We can make little contribution to the welfare of humanity on the theory that we are a superior people and all others are an inferior people.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

4. A bit long, but great message. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

We can only make America first in the true sense which that means by cultivating a spirit of friendship and good will, by the exercise of the virtues of patience and forbearance, by being 'plenteous in mercy', and through progress at home and helpfulness abroad.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

2.75. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Our military operations have been for the service of the cause of humanity. The principles on which they have been fought have more and more come to be accepted as the ultimate standards of the world. They have been of an enduring substance, which is not weakened but only strengthened by the passage of time and the contemplation of reason.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

2.75. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

The American forces are distinctly the forces of peace. They are the guaranties of that order and tranquility in this part of the world, which is alike beneficial to us and all the other nations. Everyone knows that we covet no territory, we entertain no imperialistic designs, we harbor no enmity toward any other people. We seek no revenge, we nurse no grievances, we have inflicted no injuries, and we fear no enemies. Our ways are the ways of peace.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

2.75. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

We are situated differently in this respect from any other country. All the other great powers have a comparatively homogeneous population, close kindred in race and blood and speech, and commonly little divided in religious beliefs. Our great nation is made up of the strong and virile pioneering stock of nearly all the countries of the world. We have a variety of race and language and religious belief.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

We all subscribe to the principle of religious liberty and toleration and equality of rights. This principle is in accordance with the fundamental law of the land. It is the very spirit of the American constitution. We all recognize and admit that it ought to be put into practical operation. We know that every argument of right and reason requires such action. Yet in time of stress and public agitation we have too great a tendency to disregard this policy and indulge in race hatred, religious intolerance, and disregard of equal rights. Such sentiments are bound to react upon those who harbor them. Instead of being a benefit they are a positive injury. We do not have to examine history very far before we see whole countries that have been blighted, whole civilizations that have been shattered by a spirit of intolerance. They are destructive of order and progress at home and a danger to peace and good will abroad.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

4. A bit long, but nice message. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments. This is both historically and logically true. Of course the government can help to sustain ideals and can create institutions through which they can be the better observed, but their source by their very nature is in the people. The people have to bear their own responsibilities. There is no method by which that burden can be shifted to the government.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

2.75. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

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. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

The Declaration of Independence. Three very definite propositions were set out in its preamble regarding the nature of mankind and therefore of government. These were the doctrine that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that therefore the source of the just powers of government must be derived from the consent of the governed. If no one is to be accounted as born into a superior station, if there is to be no ruling class, and if all possess rights which can neither be bartered away nor taken from them by any earthly power, it follows as a matter of course that the practical authority of the Government has to rest on the consent of the governed.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

In its main features the Declaration of Independence is a great spiritual document. It is a declaration not of material but of spiritual conceptions. Equality, liberty, popular sovereignty, the rights of man. These are not elements which we can see and touch. They are ideals. They have their source and their roots in the religious convictions. They belong to the unseen world. Unless the faith of the American people in these religious convictions is to endure, the principles of our Declaration will perish. We can not continue to enjoy the result if we neglect and abandon the cause.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

3.25. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis on the observance of the law than they do on its enforcement. It is a maxim of our institutions, that the government does not make the people, but the people make the government.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~

2.75. – Illegitimate Barrister 20:58, 4 August 2015 (UTC)

Whether one traces his Americanisms back three centuries to the Mayflower, or three years to the steerage, is not half so important as whether his Americanism of today is real and genuine... No matter by what various crafts we came here, we are all now in the same boat.
~ Calvin Coolidge ~
It would have been perfectly easy to say: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all white men of the European race upon this continent are created equal – to their brethren across the water; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; but that yellow, blacky brown, and red men have no such rights." It would have been very easy to say this. Our fathers did not say it, because they did not mean it. They were men who meant what they said, and who said what they meant, and meaning all men, they said all men. They were patriots asserting a principle and ready to die for it, not politicians pettifogging for the presidency.
~ George William Curtis ~
Science can flourish only in an atmosphere of free speech.
~ Albert Einstein ~


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