Statue Of Liberty Quotes

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”
― Emma Lazarus

“...the Statue of Liberty's got this invitation: 'Give me your tired, your poor, your reeking homeless--'

'Huddled masses,' said Ira. 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.'
...
Okay, fine. So like everybody in the old countries says, 'Hey, I'm a huddled mass,' and they all wanna come over.”
― Neal Shusterman, The Schwa Was Here

“The main objects of all science, the freedom and happiness of man. . . . [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government.

(A plaque with this quotation, with the first phrase omitted, is in the stairwell of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty.)”
― Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson: Writings

“Its magnificence was indescribable, and its magnitude was inconceivable. She felt overwhelmed in the presence of its greatness. Pg 87”
― Mona Rodriguez FORTY YEARS IN A DAY

“The American flag doesn't give her glory on a peaceful, calm day. It's when the winds pick up and become boisterous, do we see her strength. When she unfolds her hand, and shows her frayed fingers, where we see the stretch of red-blood lines of man that fought for this land. The purity of white stripes that strips our sins, and the stars of Abraham's covenant, broad in a midnight blue sky. The rights our forefathers established. As it waves high in the currents of freedom, where the Torch of Liberty shines over the sea, does she give meaning to unity. When we strive as one nation, or when it drops half-mast, to a fallen soldier.”
― Anthony Liccione

“Confession is good for the soul even after the soul has been claimed” (p. 381).”
― Mona Rodriguez FORTY YEARS IN A DAY

“Why are you perpetuating a childhood you grew up despising?”
― Mona Rodriguez, Forty Years in a Day

“Liberty is too precious a thing to be buried in books. Humans should hold it up in their hands every single day of their lives and say from the deepest fathoms of their soul – “I am free – to think – to speak – to act – the way a real, novel, civilized being should – my ancestors couldn’t, but I can, and my children will”.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Conscience over Nonsense

“It is not for nothing that that vivacious lady is standing up there with the torch of liberty in her hand, as a beacon to the whole world - take a look at the world through her eyes, if you really want to see something – and you won’t just see scenery – you’ll see the whole parade of what humans have carved out for themselves after centuries of fighting – fighting so they could stand on their own two feet, free and decent, no matter their race, religion and creed.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Build Bridges not Walls: In the name of Americana

“Sometimes I think about Lady Liberty.
How they used to let you climb on her crown.
How we used to stand bright by her torch.
How they welded that door closed years ago.

And how now...
you can hardly even get a spot near her feet.

~tired, poor, yearning to breathe~”
― Kalen Dion

“From where I stood, the Statue of Liberty was a flourescent green fleck against the sky, and beyond her sat Ellis Island, the focus of so many myths; but it had been built too late for those early Africans - who weren't immigrants in any case - and it had been closed too soon to mean anything to the later Africans like Kenneth, or the cabdriver, or me.”
― Teju Cole

“Don't you think the Golden Gate Bridge looks to the East in the same way the Statue of Liberty faces Europe, the Old World?' Mike now asked. 'That the Bridge and the Statue face in opposite directions, the Bridge is the end whereas the Statue is the beginning?'
'The Golden Gate Bridge should be understood symbolically,' Foucault responded, 'in the sense that it does not go from America back to America but that it should be something that could possibly open up out of America.”
― Simeon Wade, Foucault in California [A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death]

“Thanks, Ms. Liberty! Is that a sari you're wearing? I hope not.”
― Mitali Perkins, You Bring the Distant Near

“As Karl Rossmann, a poor boy of sixteen who had been packed off to America by his parents because a servant girl had seduced him and got herself with child by him, stood on the liner slowly entering the harbour of New York, a sudden burst of sunshine seemed to illumine the Statue of Liberty, so that he saw it in a new light, although he had sighted it long before. The arm with the sword rose up as if newly stretched aloft, and round the figure blew the free winds of heaven.”
― Franz Kafka, Amerika

“Most of the faces around us were young but not teenagers. A good portion of the country's universities and colleges had been temporarily shut down due to lack of funding, but if a few still had money left, I guess Harvard would have been one of them.

WE ARE YOUR TIRED, YOUR POOR, YOUR HUDDLED MASSES. . . read the sign next to me.”
― Alexandra Bracken, Never Fade

“True meaning of America is not discrimination and segregation, it is equality and inclusion. And so long as that force of equality and inclusion runs through the veins of even ten Americans, no brainless bigot can succeed in poisoning the soul of our great land of liberty.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“We have won the battle of making the White House human again, but the war has just begun - the war against systemic racism, against misogyny, against homophobia, against islamophobia, against gun violence, and against post-pandemic health and economic crisis. So, though we may celebrate the victory for a short while, we mustn't lose sight of the issues - we must now actually start working as one people - as the American people to heal the wounds on the soul of our land of liberty. It's time to once again start dreaming and working towards the impossible dream - the dream of freedom not oppression, the dream of assimilation not discrimination, and above all, the dream of ascension not descension.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“He greeted me in his usual attire - pajama pants. "Hey stranger!" he said, hugging me for a few long seconds. "I've already set up the board. Can I get you some rose"
I nodded, overwhelmingly relieved to be with another human being - even if he was really a wolf in grandma's clothing. Or was he just a wolf in wolf's clothing? After all, he wore pajamas... Hmmm. I contemplated all this as he poured me a glass of wine.
"Mind if I smoke?" he asked as he lit up a joint and motioned me over to the sleek brown couch. Italian, of course.
Through the three windows that faced south, north, and west, I saw the Statue of Liberty, and Ellis Island, where I had paid to have my parents' names inscribed in the immigrant wall of honor. Some American Dream this was!”
― Inna Swinton, The Many Loves of Mila

“Past the projects, the land opened up and water came into view. The breeze carried rain and salt. Jetties and barrier walls supported the shore, which was stacked with crumbling brick warehouses. Out in the channel, the Statue of Liberty stood alone on her little island, her corroding flame held high in the air as the sun set over the industrial shoreline and skyways of New Jersey. Across the narrows, the bluffs of Staten Island wavered in the smoky light of dusk that turned the Verrazano into bronze. Faint light burnished water into busy with freighters and tug boats. A lone sail boat flitted in the distance. On the near shore, on a slip of water between a jetty and the land, a blood red barge bobbed on the tide.”
― Andrew Cotto, Outerborough Blues: A Brooklyn Mystery

“Hennie read the last lines of the pamphlet: “Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
“That’s Emma Lazarus,” said Pa.
“Is that her up there?” asked Hennie and pointed at Melinda Swanevelder in the Volvo.
Pa said no, Emma Lazarus was an American poet. She wrote the poem that is engraved on the Statue of Liberty. The woman in the cab is Melinda Swanevelder. We found her in Vanderkloof.”
― Deon Meyer, Fever A Novel

“It's not enough for the torch of liberty to be held up high only by one woman, every human must hold the torch up high in every corner of the world.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Monk Meets World

“Lady liberty is not just a statue, she is a reflection of the soul of America.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Shape of A Human: Our America Their America

“My Lady Liberty (The Sonnet)

O my beloved lady liberty,
Here, I place my head at your feet.
The way you've been upholding freedom,
May I live as vigorous without greed.
You have given refuge to the persecuted,
You have shown light to the distressed.
May I be as upright as you my dear,
May my life shelter the meek and repressed.
Let me absorb you through my every pore,
So I may draw from your eternal strength.
The way you stand as testament of justice,
May I stand as steady giving up my last breath.
I can never repay my debt to you lady liberty.
Take my life and use it as ointment for society.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Earthquakin' Egalitarian: I Die Everyday So Your Children Can Live

“Carving Inclusion (The Sonnet)

Carving a sonnet of inclusion on a statue,
Does not magically make a nation accepting.
There ain't gonna be no inclusion unless we,
Stop filibustering, and start love-mustering.
Turning back the clock on cultural diversity,
Does not make a nation strong and progressive.
Traditions that refuse inclusion and expansion,
Are sheer poison in the path of societal uplift.
A rigid nation is no nation but a primitive tribe,
A civilized community practices reason and warmth.
Economy does not make a nation super power,
Equality and inclusion reveal its true worth.
Assimilation is to be etched upon the national heart,
Only then we can call such heart a human heart.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Bulldozer on Duty

“they came to these islands and low hills
which lift up from a land where we have
set a lamp with a golden torch
on top, to remind us, here at the door:
entering through it was a promise to leave it
open behind us.”
― Sharon Olds