Patrick Henry

We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our power... the battle, sir, is not to the strong alone it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.

— Patrick Henry

Perfect freedom is as necessary to the health and vigor of commerce as it is to the health and vigor of citizenship.

— Patrick Henry

Give me liberty or give me death."

— Patrick Henry

I have now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is the Christian religion.

— Patrick Henry

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience.

— Patrick Henry

I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.

— Patrick Henry

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.

— Patrick Henry

Fear is the passion of slaves.

— Patrick Henry

Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. Whenever you give up that force, you are inevitably ruined.

— Patrick Henry

Perfect freedom is as necessary to the health and vigor of commerce as it is to the health and vigor of citizenship.

— Patrick Henry

It is natural to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes to that siren until she allures us to our death.

— Patrick Henry

This is all the inheritance I give to my dear family. The religion of Christ will give them one which will make them rich indeed.

— Patrick Henry

A King, by disallowing Acts of this salutary nature, from being the father of his people, degenerated into a Tyrant and forfeits all rights to his subjects' obedience.

— Patrick Henry

Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third — ["Treason!" cried the Speaker] — may profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it.

— Patrick Henry

The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American.

— Patrick Henry

Suspicion is a virtue as long as its object is the public good, and as long as it stays within proper bounds. … Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.

— Patrick Henry

Show me that age and country where the rights and liberties of the people were placed on the sole chance of their rulers being good men, without a consequent loss of liberty?

— Patrick Henry

When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, Sir, was then the primary object.

— Patrick Henry

Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense? Where is the difference between having our arms in possession and under our direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety or equal safety to us, as in our own hands?

— Patrick Henry

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.

— Patrick Henry

This is all the inheritance I can give to my dear family. The religion of Christ can give them one which will make them rich indeed.

— Patrick Henry

Let us trust God and our better judgment to set us right hereafter. United we stand, divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs. Let us preserve our strength for the French, the English, the Germans, or whoever else shall dare invade our territory, and not exhaust it in civil commotions and intestine wars.

— Patrick Henry

For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and to provide for it.

— Patrick Henry

I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.

— Patrick Henry