America's greatness has been ...

America\'s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.
America's greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.
 John W. Gardner

More phrases

All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope.
I know but one freedom and that is the freedom of the mind.
 Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.
The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.
 Thích Nhất Hạnh
Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom - and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.

Quotes from the same author

The creative individual has the capacity to free himself from the web of social pressures in which the rest of us are caught. He is capable of questioning the assumptions that the rest of us accept.
 John W. Gardner
One exemplary act may affect one life, or even millions of lives. All those who set standards for themselves, who strengthen the bonds of community, who do their work creditably and accept individual responsibility, are building the common future.
 John W. Gardner
It is not easy to be crafty and winsome at the same time, and few accomplish it after the age of six.
 John W. Gardner
In the United States, to an unprecedented degree, the individual's social role has come to be determined not by who he is but by what he can accomplish.
 John W. Gardner
The [nonprofit] sector is the natural home of nonmajoritarian impulses, movements and values. It comfortably harbors innovators, maverick movements, groups which feel they must fight for their place in the sun, and critics of both liberal conservative persuasion.
 John W. Gardner