No person knows better than you do that the domination of England is the sole and blighting curse of this country. It is the incubus that sits on our energies, stops the pulsation of the nation's heart and leaves to Ireland not gay vitality but horrid the convulsions of a troubled dream.

The altar of liberty totters when it is cemented only with blood

Every religion is good—every religion is true to him who in his good caution and conscience believes it.

The principle of my political life ... is that all amelioration and improvements in political institutions can be obtained by persevering in a perfectly peaceable and legal course, and cannot be obtained by forcible means, or if they could be got by forcible means, such means create more evils than they cure, and leave the country worse than they found it.

I want to make all Europe and America know it - I want to make England feel her weakness if she refuses to give the justice we the Irish require - the restoration of our domestic parliament.

Although the Irish language is connected with the many recollections that twine around the hearts of Irishmen, yet the superior utility of the English tongue, as the medium of all modern communication, is so great that I can witness without a sigh the gradual decline of the Irish language.

How cruel the Penal Laws are which exclude me from a fair trial with men whom I look upon as so much my inferiors.