The Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, the constitutions of the several states, and the organic laws of the territories all alike propose to protect the people in the exercise of their God-given rights. Not one of them pretends to bestow rights.

Democracy is not the end point of mankind. There may be developments in many different directions in the coming centuries. Democracy has only existed for about 200 years. It started out with the American Declaration of Independence. The Americans got their ideas from the Europeans, in the main from the French, the Dutch and the British.

When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, declaring that all men were created equal, he owned slaves. Women couldn't vote. But, throughout history, our abolitionists, suffragettes, and civil rights leaders called on our nation, in reality, to live up to the nation's professed ideals in that Declaration.

You go back and you read your Constitution. You read your Declaration of Independence. And you will see that the only people who could decide these freedoms were white males who owned property, and all the rest of us were excluded.

To me, both the Declaration of Independence and the Communist Manifesto contain underlying truths, but the West doesn't permit a middle road.

Our Declaration of Independence was held sacred by all and thought to include all; but now, to aid in making the bondage of the Negro universal and eternal, it is assailed, sneered at, construed, hawked at, and torn, till, if its framers could rise from their graves, they could not at all recognize it.

I should like to know if, taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle, you begin making exceptions to it, where will you stop? If one man says it does not mean a Negro, why not another say it does not mean some other man?

When the happy era shall arrive for the emancipation of nations, hastened on as it will be by the example of America, shall they not resort to the Declaration of our Independence as the charter of their rights, and will not its author be hailed as the benefactor of the redeemed?

In America we have a Declaration of Independence, but our history, our advancements, our global strength all point to an American declaration of interdependence.

Robert Treat Paine was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

In the United States today, the Declaration of Independence hangs on schoolroom walls, but foreign policy follows Machiavelli.

China not only fights for her own independence, but also for the liberation of every oppressed nation. For us, the Atlantic Charter and President Roosevelt's proclamation of the Four Freedoms for all peoples are corner-stones of our fighting faith.

In the progress of personality, first comes a declaration of independence, then a recognition of interdependence.

In the over two centuries since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, millions of Americans have bravely served our nation in uniform so that all generations can continue to enjoy those same liberties.

The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it.

Autonomy leads to empowerment. We work hard to maintain a balance between collaboration and cooperation and independence.

A declaration of the independence of America, and the sovereignty of the United States was drawn by the ingenious and philosophic pen of Thomas Jefferson, Esquire, a delegate from the state of Virginia.

America was never officially a Christian nation, since neither Jesus Christ nor the Bible are mentioned in the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence. But there's no denying the influence Christianity has had on our country.

The beliefs expressed in the Declaration of Independence remain a standard for our nation today. They also remain a standard for those nations across the globe striving to achieve democracy.

The American Revolution and Declaration of Independence, it has often been argued, were fueled by the most radical of all American political ideas.

It is hard to conceive of the utter demoralization, of the political blindness and immorality, of the patriotic dishonesty, of the cruelty and degradation of a people who supplemented the incomparable Declaration of Independence with the Fugitive Slave Law.

Many a revolution started with the actions of a few. Only 56 men signed the Declaration of Independence. A few hanging together can lead a nation to change.

The Declaration of Independence was to set forth the moral justification of a rebellion against a long-recognized political tradition - the divine right of kings.

The Jewish festival of freedom is the oldest continuously observed religious ritual in the world. Across the centuries, Passover has never lost its power to inspire the imagination of successive generations of Jews with its annually re-enacted drama of slavery and liberation.