“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.”

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

The great object is that every man be armed.

Will preserve it but downright force. When you give up that force, you are ruined.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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?

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. If they had that and I had not given them one shilling they would have been rich; and if they had not that and I had given them all the world, they would be poor.

Fear is the passion of slaves.

Patrick Henry wanted the Constitution to have a Bill of Rights attached to it — a list of powers that the government could never use against the people of the United States.

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

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

I smell a rat.

The expectation is the father of attachment.

I think daughters can change the perception of their fathers.

To a wise and good man the whole earth is his fatherland.

You never appreciate your parents until you are one.

The best thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.

It’s hard to say a favorite song of my father’s. I listen to all his stuff; a lot of the old stuff before the ’70s.

When I win awards, I think of my father.

The nature of impending fatherhood is that you are doing something that you’re unqualified to do, and then you become qualified while doing it.