Everyone needs encouragement. For my own benefit, and that of anyone who loves the cause of liberty, I present some of the most inspiring quotations I know.
"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, "The War Inevitable" speech in the Virginia Convention, March 23, 1775
"I have not yet begun to fight!" - John Paul Jones, response to enemy demand to surrender, September 23, 1779
"I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country." - Nathan Hale, before being hanged by the British, September 22, 1776
"Nevertheless, to the persecution and tyranny of his cruel ministry we will not tamely submit — appealing to Heaven for the justice of our cause, we determine to die or be free...." - Joseph Warren, American account of the Battle of Lexington, April 26, 1775
"Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." - Leviticus 25:10, Inscription on the Liberty Bell
"The battle, Sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, Sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable; and let it come! I repeat, Sir, let it come!" - Patrick Henry, "The War Inevitable" speech to the Virginia Convention, March 23 , 1775.
"There is a time for all things, a time to preach and a time to pray, but those times have passed away. There is a time to fight, and that time has now come." - Peter Muhlenberg, from a Lutheran sermon read at Woodstock, Virginia, Jan, 1776
"There! His Majesty can now read my name without glasses. And he can double the reward on my head!" - John Hancock, upon signing the Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776
"We know the Race is not to the swift nor the Battle to the Strong. Do you not think an Angel rides in the Whirlwind and directs this Storm?" - John Page, letter to Thomas Jefferson, July 20, 1776
"With hearts fortified with these animating reflections, we most solemnly, before God and the world, declare, that, exerting the utmost energy of those powers, which our beneficent Creator hath graciously bestowed upon us, the arms we have compelled by our enemies to assume, we will, in defiance of every hazard, with unabating firmness and perseverance employ for the preservation of our liberties; being with one mind resolved to die freemen rather than to live as slaves." - Thomas Jefferson and John Dickinson, Declaration of the Cause and Necessity of Taking up Arms, July 6, 1775
“These are the times that try men’s souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.” – Thomas Paine, “The Crisis”, Number I , December 23, 1776. From Common Sense, the Rights of Man, and Other Essential Writings of Thomas Paine. New York: Penguin Books, 1984, pg. 75.
"Never give in, never give in, never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense." - Winston Spencer Churchill, address at Harrow School, October 29, 1941
