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?
Fear is the passion of slaves.
Are we at last brought to such humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our defense?
Be of good courage, my son, and remember that the best men always make themselves.
Adversity toughens manhood, and the characteristic of the good or the great man is not that he has been exempt from the evils of life, but that he has surmounted them.
It is the business of a virtuous clergy to censure vice in every appearance of it.
The first thing I have at heart is American liberty; the second thing is American union.
You are not to inquire how your trade may be increased, nor how you are to become a great and powerful people, but how your liberties can be secured; for liberty ought to be the direct end of your government.
The battle is not to the strong alone. It is to the vigilant, the active, and the brave. A small, disciplined militia can not only hold out against a larger force, but drive it back, because what they’re fighting for rightfully belongs to them.
Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom.
The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I Am Not A Virginian, But An American!
Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings – give us that precious jewel and you may take everything else!
I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil.
I know not what others may choose but, as for me, give me liberty or give me death.
For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it.
Perfect freedom is as necessary to the health and vigor of commerce as it is to the health and vigor of citizenship.
Give me liberty or give me death.
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.
It is when a people forget God, that tyrants forge their chains.
The great object is that every man be armed.