I am determined to defend my rights and maintain my freedom or sell my life in the attempt.

Liberty I will have, or die in the attempt to gain it.

You cannot, sir, take from me any thing that I will more willingly part withal: except my life, except my life, except my life.

... 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!

And at once he sacrificed everything to it, if it can be said we ever sacrifice anything save what we know we can never attain, or what some secret wisdom tells us it would be uncomfortable or saddening to possess.

I do not think anyone would question my sincerity when I say that there is hardly anything I would not sacrifice for peace, but there is one thing which I must except and that is the liberty which we have enjoyed for hundreds of years and which we will never surrender... No greater mistake could be made than to suppose that, because it believes war to be a senseless and cruel thing, this nation has so lost its fibre that it will not take part to the utmost of its power in resisting such a challenge if it were ever made.

How much can one sacrifice for the sake of one's pride? Everything, of course—if one is proud enough.

Freedom lies at the heart of my willingness to lose everything

It is solely by risking life that freedom is obtained; . . . the individual who has not staked his or her life may, no doubt, be recognized as a Person; but he or she has not attained the truth of this recognition as an independent self-consciousness.

Had I many thousands of lives I would offer them all for him. Never shall I apostatize. You may kill me if that is what you want. To die for God—such is my will.

but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

Give me liberty, or give me death!

I'd rather offer my life as a sacrifice than be necessary to anything.

People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paid back as a small part of a great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, or danger now and then with a foregoing of the common conveniences and charities of this life, may make us pause and cause the spirit to waver and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing when compared with the glory which shall be revealed in and for us. I never made a sacrifice.