We must have constantly present in our minds the difference between independence and liberty. Liberty is a right of doing whatever the laws permit, and if a citizen could do what they forbid he would no longer be possessed of liberty.
Independence
Thomas Paine, so celebrated and so despised as he traveled through the critical events of his time, has long appealed to biographers. Paine was present at the creation both of the United States and of the French Republic. His eloquence, in the pamphlet ‘Common Sense,’ propelled the American colonists toward independence.
At the bottom of education, at the bottom of politics, even at the bottom of religion, there must be for our race economic independence.
In July, 1892, fate suddenly granted me financial independence.
Nature has never read the Declaration of Independence. It continues to make us unequal.
I always showed myself in the face of day, asserting the liberty and independence of my country, while some others, like owls, courted concealment and were too much afraid of losing their roosts to leave them for such a cause.
Independence is a heady draught, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine does. It does not matter that its taste is not always appealing. It is addictive and with each drink you want more.
Those who really value Ukrainian sovereignty should opt for real independence and a positive neutrality: neither a plaything of the West nor Moscow.
I think the girl who is able to earn her own living and pay her own way should be as happy as anybody on earth. The sense of independence and security is very sweet.
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.