“I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave's point of view. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July!”

— Frederick Douglass

Douglass here quotes William Lloyd Garrison, who famously declared in the first issue of The Liberator: "I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD."
1850s, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? (1852)
Context: I shall see, this day, and its popular characteristics, from the slave's point of view. Standing, there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the Bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate slavery — the great sin and shame of America! "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;" I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgement is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.

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Frederick Douglass 274

American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman 1818–1895

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“What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1850s, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? (1852)
Context: What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.

“"Nothing important happened today." - King George's diary entry, July 4th, 1776, the same day the American colonies declared their independence.”

George III of the United Kingdom (1738–1820) King of Great Britain and King of Ireland

Arnold Hunt, curator at the British Library, says King George never kept a diary http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11703583.
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“No compromise on the main purpose; no peace till victory; no pact with unrepentant wrong -- that is the Declaration of July 4th, 1918.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

At a joint Anglo-American rally in Westminster, July 4, 1918, speaking against calls for a negotiated truce with Germany. As printed in War aims & peace ideals: selections in prose & verse (1919), edited by Tucker Brooke & Henry Seidel Canby, Yale University Press, p. 138.
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“The 4th of July is the first great fact in your nation's history — the very ring-bolt in the chain of your yet undeveloped destiny. Pride and patriotism, not less than gratitude, prompt you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have said that the Declaration of Independence is the ring-bolt to the chain of your nation's destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand by those principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places, against all foes, and at whatever cost.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

1850s, What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? (1852)

“All the mistakes I make arise from forsaking my own station and trying to see the object from another person's point of view.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“Venus, take my votive glass;
Since I am not what I was,
What from this day I shall be,
Venus, let me never see.”

Matthew Prior (1664–1721) British diplomat, poet

The Lady Who Offers Her Looking-Glass to Venus (1718).

“My works are dear to me, each in its own way, I shall have to answer for them on the Day off Judgement. God alone knows whether I shall ever see them again. Quite apart from the money which I was going to receive for their sale there (exhibition in Gallery Der Sturm, Berlin June-July, 1914) and it is no small sum..”

Marc Chagall (1887–1985) French artist and painter

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“Doctor, you keep asking me to see your point of view, which is based on ethics. You never see mine, which isn’t.”

Larry Niven book The Mote in God's Eye

Source: The Mote in God's Eye (1974), Chapter 53 “The Djinn” (p. 516; spoken by a politician to a scientist)

“When I am asked about my own motivations for changing, my response is that the alternative of not changing seems far worse and more frightening. Mine is not idealistic rebellion or personal sacrifice. From my point of view it is a matter of survival. I do not want to pay the price I see extracted from most of the men around me.”

Herb Goldberg (1937–2019) American psychologist

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“If you’re doing it right, you’re not asking the audience to buy into your point of view at all. If you’re doing it right, you’re asking the audience to accept the character’s point of view as the character’s point of view. That can be anything. We’ve all watched hundreds of movies from characters’ points of view that are not our own. That’s part of the gift movies give us.”

Scott Derrickson (1966) American screenwriter and film director

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