“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Abraham Lincoln · Gettysburg Address, November 19, 1863

“This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the Fourth of July. It is the birthday of your National Independence, and of your political freedom.”

Frederick Douglass · What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?, July 5, 1852

“Give me liberty, or give me death!”

Patrick Henry · Speech to the Virginia Convention, March 23, 1775

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Thomas Jefferson · Declaration of Independence, 1776

“When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it: this is knowledge.”

Confucius · Analects, 2.17

“The man who learns but does not think is lost. The man who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.”

Confucius · Analects, 2.15

“Dying of shyness doesn't require a dramatic event. It just requires enough mornings where you decided today wasn't the day to come out.”

Original

“The shell protected the tortoise from everything except the decision to stay inside it.”

Original

“A frog in a well does not know the great sea.”

Japanese Proverb · I no naka no kawazu taikai wo shirazu

“Fall seven times, get up eight.”

Japanese Proverb · Nana korobi ya oki, Edo period Japan

“The will to live is not the will to live at any cost; it is the will to live this life.”

Nassim Taleb · Paraphrased from Stoic philosophy

“A blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it.”

Marcus Aurelius · Meditations