American Quotations by William J. Federer 2024

Giuseppe Garibaldi (July 4, 1807-June 2, 1882) was an Italian general and nationalist leader. He freed Italy from foreign rule and saw Rome once again become its capital. Of the Bible, General Garibaldi said: <This is the cannon that will make Italy free.> 1807GG001  In his Autobiography, General Giuseppe Garibaldi wrote: <I am a Christian, and I speak to Christians-I am a true Christian, and I speak to true Christians. I love and venerate the religion of Christ, because Christ came into the world to deliver humanity from slavery, for which God had not created it....You who are here-you, the educated...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807-March 24, 1882) was an American poet. He served for 20 years as Professor of Belles-Lettres at Harvard University, 1834-54. He wrote such poems as: Evangeline, 1847; The Song of Hiawatha, 1855; The Courtship of Miles Standish, 1858; and Paul Revere's Ride, 1861. In his brother's Ordination Hymn, Longfellow wrote: <Christ to the young man said: "Yet one thing more: If thou wouldst perfect be, Sell all thou hast, and give it to the poor, And come and follow me!" Within this temple Christ again, unseen, Those sacred words hath said, And His invisible hands...

Robert Edward Lee (January 19, 1807-October 12, 1870) was a Confederate General during the Civil War. He was the son of the Revolutionary leader, "Light-Horse Harry" Lee, and the son-in-law of George Washington's adopted son, George Washington Parke Custis. Robert E. Lee and his wife, Mary Ann Randolph, inherited the 1,100 acre Washington estate directly across the Potomac from Washington, D.C. Tutored and home-schooled as a child, Robert E. Lee excelled at West Point, and distinguished himself in the Mexican-American War. From San Antonio, Texas, he engineered the American troops' passage across the difficult Mexican mountains so they could quickly...

Matthew Fontaine Maury (January 14, 1806-February 1, 1873) was a scientist and pioneer hydrographer. He was known as the "Pathfinder of the Seas" for having charted the sea and wind currents while serving in the U.S. Navy. Considered the founder of modern hydrography and oceanography, he was Professor of Meteorology at Virginia Military Institute. In his book Physical Geography of the Sea, 1855, Matthew Maury wrote: <I have always found in my scientific studies, that, when I could get the Bible to say anything on the subject it afforded me a firm platform to stand upon, and a round in...

William Lloyd Garrison (December 10, 1805-May 24, 1879 was an abolitionist leader and the publisher of The Liberator, an anti-slavery paper in Boston. He founded the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833 and suffered hundreds of threats upon his life for his politically incorrect stand that a human being was not property. In the face of pro-slavery government, laws, court decisions, public opinion, and even pseudo "scientific theories" that Negroes were "biologically inferior" and therefore denied the right to life and freedom, William Lloyd Garrison printed the first issue of The Liberator on January 1, 1831: <It is pretended, that I...