Henry Steele Commager Quotes

Our country was founded on protest. If it was just shut up and honor your country no matter what, we'd still be flying the Union Jack. That's not what our founding fathers did. They didn't like what was going on, and they broke away and formed their own country.

Protests are the very essence of America! It is a country founded in protest.

Our country was founded on protest. Otherwise, we would still be a colony of England.

No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. Dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots.

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive.

One of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the great struggle for Independence.

Here in America we are descended in blood and in spirit from revolutionists and rebels -- men and women who dare to dissent from accepted doctrine. As their heirs, we may never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion

The United States was born in revolution and nurtured by struggle. Throughout our history, the American people have befriended and supported all those who seek independence and a better way of life.

Our founding fathers declared independence from Great Britain because they were dissatisfied with the laws and policies that they believed abridged their freedoms. Had they taken the stance that many want our professional athletes to take - to just shut up and honor your country no matter what - we would be living in British colonies.

America was born of revolt, flourished in dissent, became great through experimentation.

America was not founded to improve health care or housing; it was founded for freedom.

This nation was founded by rebels and revolutionaries, and its flags were carried across the battlefields by people who were very, very against the status quo and who questioned and criticized.

During my last voyage to America, I enjoyed the happiness of seeing that revolution completed, and, thinking of the one that would probably occur in France, I said in a speech to Congress, published everywhere except in the 'French Gazette,' 'May this revolution serve as a lesson to oppressors and as an example to the oppressed!'

Tens of thousands of brave Americans died to break the chains of British tyranny so that the principles of our Declaration of Independence could take fold and flourish in the birth of a new nation.

When we fled from the oppressions of kings and parliaments in Europe, to found this great Republic in America, we brought with us the laws and the liberties, which formed a part of our heritage as Britons.

Give me liberty or give me death.

Patrick Henry did not say, 'Give me absolutely safety or give me death.' America is supposed to be about freedom.

The time is near at hand which must determine whether Americans are to be free men or slaves.

There is nothing more American than dissent.

Whenever an American requests to see me I comply, because I respect a people who acquired their freedom by firmness without excess.

[American colonists] had no common national tradition except that against which they were revolting.

Be it for the defense, or be it for the assertion of a nation’s liberty, I look upon the sword as a sacred weapon …. Abhor and stigmatize the sword? No, no, my lord, for at its blow a giant nation sprang from the waters of the Atlantic and by its redeeming magic, and in the quivering of its crimson light, the fettered Colony became a daring free Republic—prosperous, limitless and invincible.

Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable - a most sacred right - a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.

Union or death!

Know that as I could not submit to stoop before the sovereigns of Europe, so I came to hazard all the freedom of America, and desirous of passing the rest of my life in a country free and before settling as a citizen, to fight for liberty.