I charge [my sons] never to let the motives of private interest or ambition to influence them to betray, nor the terrors of poverty and disgrace, or the fear of danger or of death deter them from asserting the liberty of their country, and endeavoring to transmit to their posterity those sacred rights to which themselves were born

Don't wait around for your life to happen to you. Find something that makes you happy, and do it. Because everything else is all just background noise.

The epithets of parent and child have been long applied to Great Britain and her colonies, [but] we rarely see anything from your side of the water except the authoritative style of a master to a school-boy.

The laws of nature are the laws of God, whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth.

The Laws of Nature are the Laws of God, Whose authority can be superseded by no power on earth. A legislature must not obstruct our obedience to Him from whose punishment they cannot protect us. All human constitutions which contradict His laws, we are in conscience bound to disobey.

We came equals into this world, and equals shall we go out of it.

I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few public officials.