142 Quotes by Patrick Henry

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!

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.

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.]

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

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.

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.

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?

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