“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) He understood that the home was the foundation of a stable society and that the authority a man "exercised within the larger society was rooted in the authority exercised at home." Thus ... the training ground for all sound leadership is the family.”

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

“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.”

“The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.”

“Do you remember any instance where tyranny was destroyed and freedom established on its ruins, among a people possessing so small a share of virtue and public spirit? I recollect none, and this more than the British arms makes me fearful of final success, without a reform.”

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

“When the American spirit was in its youth, the language of America was different: Liberty, sir, was the primary object.”

“Perfect freedom is as necessary to the health and vigor of commerce as it is to the health and vigor of citizenship.”

“We are descended from a people whose government was founded on liberty; our glorious forefathers of Great Britain made liberty the foundation of everything. That country is become a great, mighty, and splendid nation; not because their government is strong and energetic, but, sir, because liberty is its direct end and foundation.”

“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.”