I am forced to get my living by the labour of my hand; and the sweat of my brow... for bitter bread, earned under the frowns of some who have no natural or divine right to be above me, and entirely owe their grandeur and honor to grinding the faces of the poor.

These manly sentiments, in private life, make the good citizen; in public life, the patriot and the hero.

There can be no prescription old enough to supersede the Law of Nature and the grant of God Almighty, who has given to all men a natural right to be free, and they have it ordinarily in their power to make themselves so, if they please.

The only principles of public conduct that are worthy of a gentleman or a man are to sacrifice estate, ease, health, and applause, and even life, to the sacred calls of his country.

One of the most essential branches of English liberty is the freedom of one's house. A man's house is his castle.

[The passage of the Sugar Act] set people a thinking, in six months, more than they had done in their whole lives before.

My dear sister, I hope, when God Almighty in his righteous providence shall take me out of time into eternity, that it will be by a flash of lightning.