The whole inspiration of our life as a nation flows out from the waving folds of this banner. – Author Unknown
There is not a thread in it but scorns self-indulgence, weakness and rapacity. – Charles Evans Hughes
It is the flag just as much of the man who was naturalized yesterday as of the men whose people have been here many generations. – Henry Cabot Lodge
That piece of red, white and blue bunting means five thousand years of struggle upwards. It is the full-grown flower of ages of fighting for liberty. It is the century plant of human hope in bloom. – Alvin Owsley
We take the stars from heaven, the red from our mother country, separating it by white stripes, thus showing that we have separated from her, and the white stripes shall go down to posterity, representing our liberty. – George Washington, attributed
Our flag means all that our fathers meant in the Revolutionary War. It means all that the Declaration of Independence meant. It means justice. It means liberty. It means happiness…. Every color means liberty. Every thread means liberty. Every star and stripe means liberty. – Henry Ward Beecher
We do not consecrate the flag by punishing its desecration, for in doing so we dilute the freedom that this cherished emblem represents. – Justice William J. Brennan, for the Majority US Supreme Court Decision, 3 July 1
