I’ve come to really love a good quote after my high school speech classes, where we spent a fair amount of time searching for the perfect exordium. Our teacher tought us to collect and save sage words, and so be able to have them at the ready when needed. Nothing beats a clear, concise, and moving statement made in a sentence or two. And so, here from my collection are some words that I hope touch your heart and stick in your mind this Independence Day. We have a lot to be thankful for, and a lot to remember during this celebration. One big thing to recall is that it will ultimately be us who shape this country — with our votes, our words, and our lives. I think culture does a stronger job of shaping politics than politics does culture. There won’t be lasting change unless broken souls are reached for Christ and lives are transformed. Evilness should be called out and fought against. Goodness should be protected. This country was founded on Christian principles, and it will not survive on any others.
“Dear Lord/ Lest I continue/ My complacent way/ Help me to remember that somewhere/ Somehow out there/ A man died for me today./ As long as there be war, I must answer/ Am I worth dying for?” ~ Donald Patton, All the Gallant Men
“A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.” ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” ~ George Santayana
“Republican institutions in the hands of virtuous and God-fearing nation are the very best, but in the hands of a corrupt and irreligious people they are the very worst and the most effective weapons of destruction.” ~ Philip Schaff
“What one generation tolerates, the next generation will embrace.” ~ John Wesley
“Freedom has cost too much blood and agony to be relinquished at the cheap price of rhetoric.” – Thomas Sowell
“When you cannot rejoice in feelings, circumstances or conditions, rejoice in the Lord.” – A. B. Simpson
The Eight Stages of Democracy: “From bondage to spiritual faith; From spiritual faith to great courage; From courage to liberty; From liberty to abundance; From abundance to selfishness; From selfishness to complacency; From complacency to apathy; From apathy to bondage.” ~Lord Tytler
“Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that they who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.” – Gandalf, The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien
“There’s some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.” ~J.R.R. Tolkien
“What is liberty without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils… it is madness without restraint. Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetite… Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and less of it is there is within, the more there will be without.” ~ Edmund Burke, A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly
“Religion and morality are the essential pillars of civil society.” ~ George Washington
“Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.” George Washington, Farewell Address
“Instead of cursing the darkness, light a candle.” ― Unknown
The way to change is through revival, not revolution. In fact, as Romans 13 reminds us, we are to obey our authorities unless they ask us to break God’s law.
So let your life be your light.
Happy Independence Day 2025!
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