Happy Fourth of July, HuffPost readers! This Wednesday, we party in honor of our country's independence with fireworks, barbecues and all around fun. But better than burgers and explosive pyrotechnics is the freedom we have -- certainly something to celebrate. Take a moment to reflect on the quotes below and rock out to a few patriotic tunes on your way.

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  • "I am an American; free born and free bred, where I acknowledge no man as my superior, except for his own worth, or as my inferior, except for his own demerit." -Theodore Roosevelt

  • "Freedom lies in being bold." -Robert Frost

  • "America was not built on fear. America was built on courage, on imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand." -Harry S. Truman

  • "Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better." -Albert Camus

  • "Life without liberty is like a body without spirit." -Kahlil Gibran

  • "All good things are wild, and free." -Henry David Thoreau

  • "We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it." -William Faulkner

  • "Freedom is the oxygen of the soul." -Moshe Dayan

  • "Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires" -Bertrand Russell

  • "Freedom (n.): To ask nothing. To expect nothing. To depend on nothing." ― Ayn Rand,<em> The Fountainhead</em>

  • "Man is free at the moment he wishes to be." -Voltaire

  • "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -S.G. Tallentyre

  • "The secret of happiness is freedom. The secret of freedom is courage." -Thucydides

  • "It's better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." -Emiliano Zapata

  • "He who is brave is free." -Seneca

  • "Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes." -Gandhi

  • "Liberty is the breath of life to nations." -George Bernard Shaw

  • "There is something magnificent in having a country to love." -James Russell Lowell

  • "Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought." -Pope John Paul II

  • "There is no such thing as a little freedom. Either you are all free, or you are not free." -Walter Cronkite

  • "Only our individual faith in freedom can keep us free" -Dwight David Eisenhower