Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
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Address to the annual meeting of the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, (30 March 1961)
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Later variant : Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again.
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California Gubernatorial Inauguration Speech (5 January 1967)Ronald Reagan
» Ronald Reagan - all quotes »
Religious exhortation and telling people, telling children, that if they don’t do the right thing, they’ll go to terrifying punishments or unbelievable rewards, that’s making a living out of lying to children. That’s what the priesthood do. And if all they did was lie to the children, it would be bad enough. But they rape them and torture them and then hope we’ll call it ‘abuse’.
Christopher Hitchens
Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from King George and continue the slaves of King Prejudice? What is it to be born free and not to live free? What is the value of any political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom? Is it a freedom to be slaves, or a freedom to be free, of which we boast? We are a nation of politicians, concerned about the outmost defences only of freedom. It is our children's children who may perchance be really free.
Henry David Thoreau
May our children and our children's children to a thousand generations, continue to enjoy the benefits conferred upon us by a united country, and have cause yet to rejoice under those glorious institutions bequeathed us by Washington and his compeers.
Abraham Lincoln
Maybe there are lots of children or certainly those who are not drawn to my work because they don't want to see those shadows. But, I'm telling what it was like for me. And I know it was not unique for me.
I've known many children, many unhappy and many disturbed children who don't know how to talk about it. And you know, the strangest thing... the fan mail I get from kids are asking me questions which they do not ask their mothers and fathers. Because if they had, why write to me, a perfect stranger?Maurice Sendak
I am running for President of the United States to enable the goddess of peace to encircle within her reach all the children of this country and all the children of the world.
Dennis Kucinich
Reagan, Ronald
Realf, Richard
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