Patrick Henry Quotes

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.

A liberty subject to law and subordinate to the common welfare.

We have been taught to regard a representative of the people as a sentinel on the watch-tower of liberty.

The public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual’s private rights.

All of government is just a device to protect man so that he may earn his bread in the sweat of his labor.

No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation.

All government is intended for the benefit of the people.

The only orthodox object of the institution of government is to secure the greatest degree of happiness possible to the general mass of those associated under it.

Liberty was realized when the citizens were ... willing to sacrifice their private interests for the sake of the community

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

O Liberty...! is it well To leave the gates unguarded?

Government should not tell you what to do unless there's a compelling public purpose.

No free people can lose their liberties while they are jealous of liberty. But the liberties of the freest people are in danger when they set up symbols of liberty as fetishes, worshipping the symbol instead of the principle it represents.

Freedom & Duty always go hand in hand and if the free do not accept the duty of social responsibility, they will not long remain free.

No democracy has ever long survived the failure of its adherents to be ready to die for it. My own conviction is this, the people must either go on or go under.

The diminution of public virtue is usually attended with that of public happiness, and the public liberty will not long survive the total extinction of morals.

Though the island of Great Britain exhibits but a small spot upon the map of the globe, it makes a splendid appearance in the history of mankind, and for a long space has been signally under the protection of God and a seat of peace, liberty and truth.

Is the relinquishment of the trial by jury and the liberty of the press necessary for your liberty? Will the abandonment of your most sacred rights tend to the security of your liberty? Liberty, the greatest of all earlthy blessings - give us that precious jewel, and you may take every things else! . . . Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect every one who approaches that jewel.

Let no guilty man escape if it can be avoided. Be specially vigilant-or instruct those engaged in the prosecution of fraud to be-against all who insinuate that they have high influence to protect-or to protect them. No personal consideration should stand in the way of performing a public duty.

Legislative activity is always best based on care for the people.

The free world knows, out of the bitter wisdom of experience, that vigilance and sacrifice are the price of liberty.

It is not my democracy as a person; it is our democracy as a society.

Knowing more about the public effects his work will have, the engineer ought to consider himself an "officer of the court" and keep the general interest always in mind.

Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics. There must be a positive passion for the public good, the public interest, honour, power and glory, established in the minds of the people, or there can be no republican government, nor any real liberty: and this public passion must be superiour to all private passions.