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

There is not a thread in it but scorns self-indulgence, weakness and rapacity. – Charles Evans Hughes

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

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