“The blessings of liberty must be earned and renewed by every generation -- including our own.”

—  Barack Obama

2014, 25th Anniversary of Polish Freedom Day Speech (June 2014)
Context: It’s a wonderful story, but the story of this nation reminds us that freedom is not guaranteed. And history cautions us to never take progress for granted. On the same day 25 years ago that Poles were voting here, tanks were crushing peaceful democracy protests in Tiananmen Square on the other side of the world. The blessings of liberty must be earned and renewed by every generation -- including our own.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 30, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The blessings of liberty must be earned and renewed by every generation -- including our own." by Barack Obama?
Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama1158
44th President of the United States of America 1961

Related quotes

“Liberty will not descend to a people, a people must raise themselves to liberty; it is a blessing that must be earned before it can be enjoyed.”

Charles Caleb Colton (1777–1832) British priest and writer

Vol. II; CLXXVIII
Lacon (1820)

Lyndon B. Johnson photo

“For every generation, there is a destiny. For some, history decides. For this generation, the choice must be our own. […] Our destiny in the midst of change will rest on the unchanged character of our people, and on their faith.”

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)

1960s, Inaugural address (1965)
Context: For every generation, there is a destiny. For some, history decides. For this generation, the choice must be our own. [... ] Our destiny in the midst of change will rest on the unchanged character of our people, and on their faith.

Alan Keyes photo

“How does it secure the blessings of liberty to our posterity, to those generations yet unborn, to kill them, aborting them in the womb?”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Virginia high school appearance, February 28, 2000. http://renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/00_02_28virginia.htm. <br class="br">2000

Richard Price photo

“The chief blessings of human nature are the three following:—TRUTH—VIRTUE—and LIBERTY.—These are, therefore, the blessings in the possession of which the interest of our country lies, and to the attainment of which our love of it ought to direct our endeavours. By the diffusion of KNOWLEDGE it must be distinguished from a country of Barbarians: by the practice of religious VIRTUE, it must be distinguished from a country of gamblers, Atheists, and libertines: and by the possession of LIBERTY, it must be distinguished from a country of slaves.”

Richard Price (1721–1791) Welsh nonconformist preacher and radical

Source: A Discourse on the Love of Our Country (1789), p. 11

Egils Levits photo

“Common good also has a future dimension. Our task is hand over our country to the next generations better than we inherited that. One's own country must be continuously adjusted, renewed and modernised so that it would be sustainable. That is our duty towards the history.”

Egils Levits (1955) Latvian judge, jurist and politician

Source: Address given Assuming the Office / at the Saeima, https://www.president.lv/en/article/address-he-president-latvia-mr-egils-levits-assuming-office-saeima

Coretta Scott King photo

“Freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation.”

Coretta Scott King (1927–2006) American author, activist, and civil rights leader. Wife of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Source: My Life with Martin Luther King Jr., Revised Edition (1969/1993), p. xiii
Context: !-- We also need to remember that the struggle is a never ending process. --> Freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation. That is what we have not taught young people, or older ones for that matter. You do not finally win a state of freedom that is protected forever. It doesn't work that way.

John Adams photo

“Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1760s, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)

John Adams photo

“Liberty must at all hazards be supported. We have a right to it, derived from our Maker. But if we had not, our fathers have earned and bought it for us, at the expense of their ease, their estates, their pleasure, and their blood.”

John Adams (1735–1826) 2nd President of the United States

1760s, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765)

Harry V. Jaffa photo

“The idea of liberty, or the liberty which is a blessing, being an emancipation of the passions from moral restraint had no place in the constitutional doctrine of the novus ordo seclorum. The liberty which is a blessing must be good for the one who possesses it. It must therefore be a good in the sight of God, who is the source of blessings. Such a good must point to felicity, whether in this world or the next, as its consummation. By calling the advantages of liberty "blessings," the Constitution, which in certain respects makes perhaps the most radical break in all human history with all that has gone before it, nonetheless, in its understanding of the connection between happiness and virtue, aligns itself decisively with traditional moral philosophy and moral theology.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

2000s, The American Founding as the Best Regime (2002)

John F. Kennedy photo

“Together we shall save our planet, or together we shall perish in its flames. Save it we can — and save it we must — and then shall we earn the eternal thanks of mankind and, as peacemakers, the eternal blessing of God.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1961, UN speech
Context: Ladies and gentlemen of this Assembly, the decision is ours. Never have the nations of the world had so much to lose, or so much to gain. Together we shall save our planet, or together we shall perish in its flames. Save it we can — and save it we must — and then shall we earn the eternal thanks of mankind and, as peacemakers, the eternal blessing of God.

Related topics