Sunday will a day to celebrate – the Fourth of July, the day we declared our independence.

There will be picnics, parades, speeches and, of course, fireworks as we honor that day 200-plus years ago on which we achieved – and ever since have cherished – our freedom.

Before we fire up the grill, head to the park or gather friends and family around us, take a few minutes to consider the following thoughts:

Sunday will a day to celebrate – the Fourth of July, the day we declared our independence.

There will be picnics, parades, speeches and, of course, fireworks as we honor that day 200-plus years ago on which we achieved – and ever since have cherished – our freedom.

Before you fire up the grill, head to the park or gather friends and family around us, take a few minutes to consider the following thoughts:

Liberty is the breath of life to nations. – George Bernard Shaw

Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed – else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved. – Franklin D. Roosevelt

America is much more than a geographical fact. It is a political and moral fact – the first community in which men set out in principle to institutionalize freedom, responsible government, and human equality. – Adlai Stevenson

This, then, is the state of the union: free and restless, growing and full of hope. So it was in the beginning. So it shall always be, while God is willing, and we are strong enough to keep the faith. – Lyndon B. Johnson

We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it. – William Faulkner

My God! How little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy! – Thomas Jefferson

And I’m proud to be an American,

where at least I know I’m free.

And I won’t forget the men who died,

who gave that right to me.

– Lee Greenwood

We stand for freedom. That is our conviction for ourselves; that is our only commitment to others.

– John F Kennedy

May the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country!

– Daniel Webster

One flag, one land, one heart, one hand, One Nation evermore! – Oliver Wendell Holmes

From every mountainside Let Freedom ring. – Samuel F. Smith, “America”

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. – The Declaration of Independence July 4, 1776

There, I guess King George will be able to read that. – John Hancock, after signing the Declaration of Independence

And, finally, this through from Erma Bombeck:

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