Patrick Henry Quotes

#1. We should transmit to posterity our abhorrence of slavery.

Patrick Henry

#2. Were my soul trembling on the wing of eternity, were this hand freezing to death, were my voice choking with the last struggle, I would still, with the last gasp of that voice, implore you to remember the truth: God has given America to be free.

Patrick Henry

#3. The great pillars of all government and of social life [are] virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone, that renders us invincible.

Patrick Henry

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

Patrick Henry

#5. The eternal difference between right and wrong does not fluctuate, it is immutable.

Patrick Henry

#6. 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

#7. My most cherished possession I wish I could leave you is my faith in Jesus Christ, for with Him and nothing else you can be happy, but without Him and with all else you'll never be happy.

Patrick Henry

#8. Being a Christian ... is a character which I prize far above all this world has or can boast.

Patrick Henry

#9. It is natural to man to indulge in the illusion of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, till she transforms us into beasts.

Patrick Henry

#10. We have not yet begun to fight.

Patrick Henry

#11. Give me liberty or give me death.
[From a speech given at Saint John's Church in Richmond, Virginia on March 23, 1775 to the Virginia House of Burgesses; as first published in print in 1817 in William Wirt's Life and Character of Patrick Henry.]

Patrick Henry

#12. What right do they have to say "we the people" rather than we the States?

Patrick Henry

#13. (45) We will appoint as justices, constables, sheriffs, or other officials, only men that know the law of the realm and are minded to keep it well.

Patrick Henry

#14. Oh, how wretched should I be at this moment, if I had not made my peace with God.

Patrick Henry

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

Patrick Henry

#16. Suspicion is a virtue as long its object is the preservation of public good

Patrick Henry

#17. Bad men cannot make good citizens.

Patrick Henry

#18. The people have a right to keep and bear arms.

Patrick Henry

#19. If you have given up your militia, and Congress shall refuse to arm them, you have lost every thing. Your existence will be precarious, because you depend on others, whose interests are not affected by your infelicity.

Patrick Henry

#20. The first thing I have at heart is American liberty; the second thing is American union.

Patrick Henry

#21. Away with your president! We shall have a king ... the army will salute him as monarch; your militia will leave you and assist in making him king and fight against you. And what have you to oppose this force? What will then become of you and your rights?

Patrick Henry

#22. The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.

Patrick Henry

#23. We should not forget that the spark which ignited the American Revolution was caused by the British attempt to confiscate the firearms of the colonists.

Patrick Henry

#24. [Our Constitution] is an instrument for the people to restrain the government.

Patrick Henry

#25. Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason toward my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings.

Patrick Henry

#26. Are we at last brought to such a humiliating and debasing degradation, that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense?

Patrick Henry

#27. The great object is that every man be armed. Everyone who is able may have a gun.

Patrick Henry

#28. 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

#29. 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

#30. The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I Am Not A Virginian, But An American!

Patrick Henry

#31. This house protected by an armed citizen. There is absolutely nothing here worth dying for.

Patrick Henry

#32. I believe a time will come when an opportunity will be offered to abolish this lamentable evil.

Patrick Henry

#33. I am sure that the dangers of this system (the Federal Constitution) are real, when those who have no similar interest with the people of this country (the South) are to legislate for us - when our dearest rights are to be left, in the hands of those, whose advantage it will be to infringe them.

Patrick Henry

#34. 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.

Patrick Henry

#35. Suspicion is a Virtue, if in the interests of the good of the people.

Patrick Henry

#36. There is a Book worth all other books which were ever printed.

Patrick Henry

#37. I am not a Virginian, I am an American.

Patrick Henry

#38. I'm sick of all you ammo-phobes being intolerant of my gun.

Patrick Henry

#39. Liberty, the greatest of all earthly blessings - give us that precious jewel and you may take everything else!

Patrick Henry

#40. United we stand, divided we fall. Let us not split into factions which must destroy that union upon which our existence hangs.

Patrick Henry

#41. My great objection to this government is, that it does not leave us the means of defending our rights, or of waging war against tyrants.

Patrick Henry

#42. The question before the House is one of awful moment to this country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery

Patrick Henry

#43. The whole economy of this lower world proves that it is by labor and perseverance only that good is obtained and evil is avoided.

Patrick Henry

#44. The militia is our ultimate safety. We can have no security without it. The great object is that every man be armed.

Patrick Henry

#45. If our government servants had to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act as they have forced all of American business to do, they would be in jail.

Patrick Henry

#46. 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

#47. 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.

Patrick Henry

#48. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains.

Patrick Henry

#49. I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.

Patrick Henry

#50. My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask who authorized them (the framers of the Constitution) to speak the language of 'We, the People,' instead of 'We, the States'?

Patrick Henry

#51. Fear is the passion of slaves.

Patrick Henry

#52. When the American Spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different; Liberty, sir, was then the primary object.

Patrick Henry

#53. 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.

Patrick Henry

#54. I shall act as I think my duty requires.

Patrick Henry

#55. Give me liberty, or give me death! While we're at it, I would also like a fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

Patrick Henry

#56. Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Patrick Henry

#57. Human nature will never part with power. Look for an example of a voluntary relinquishment of power from one end of the globe to another - you will find none.

Patrick Henry

#58. I look on that paper (the Constitution) as the most fatal plan that could possibly be conceived to enslave a free people.

Patrick Henry

#59. 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

#60. Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

Patrick Henry

#61. You ought to be extremely cautious, watchful, jealous of your liberty; for instead of securing your rights, you may lose them forever ...

Patrick Henry

#62. Virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone that renders us invincible. These are the tactics we should study. If we lose these, we are conquered, fallen indeed ... so long as our manners and principles remain sound, there is no danger.

Patrick Henry

#63. The Bible is worth all the other books which have ever been printed.

Patrick Henry

#64. Righteousness alone can exalt America as a nation. Whoever thou art, remember this; and in thy sphere practice virtue thyself, and encourage it in others.

Patrick Henry

#65. Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction?

Patrick Henry

#66. Bad men cannot make good citizens. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience are incompatible with freedom.

Patrick Henry

#67. 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

#68. Jealousy is the only vice that gives no pleasure

Patrick Henry

#69. Be of good courage, my son, and remember that the best men always make themselves.

Patrick Henry

#70. He that hath a blind conscience which sees nothing, a dead conscience which feels nothing, and a dumb conscience which says nothing, is in as miserable a condition as a man can be on this side of hell.

Patrick Henry

#71. Give me liberty or give me gout?! Ok, who's been messing with this?

Patrick Henry

#72. Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who comes near that precious jewel. Unfortunately, nothing
will preserve it but downright force. When you give up that force, you are ruined.

Patrick Henry

#73. I am not a Virginian, but an American.

Patrick Henry

#74. Beside, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone.

Patrick Henry

#75. 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

#76. Mr. President, it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts.

Patrick Henry

#77. 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

#78. The American Revolution was the grand operation, which seemed to be assigned by the Deity to the men of this age in our country, over and above the common duties of life

Patrick Henry

#79. It is the business of a virtuous clergy to censure vice in every appearance of it.

Patrick Henry

#80. Hospitality invites to prayer before it checks credentials, welcomes to the table before administering the entrance exam.

Patrick Henry