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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  Patrick Henry (1736–99)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 571
AUTHOR: Patrick Henry (1736–99)
QUOTATION: I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging the future but by the past.
ATTRIBUTION: PATRICK HENRY, speech to the Virginia Convention, Richmond, Virginia, March 23, 1775.—William Wirt, Sketches of the Life and Character of Patrick Henry, 9th ed., pp. 138–39 (1836, reprinted 1970). Language altered to first person.

For information on the authenticity of the text of this speech, see the notes at No. 1061.
SUBJECTS: Experience