Wendell Phillips Quotes

The hand entrusted with power becomes, either from human depravity or esprit de corps, the necessary enemy of the people

Organize, and stand together. Claim something together, and at once; let the nation hear a united demand from the laboring voice, and then, when you have got that, go on after another; but get something.

We measure genius by quality, not by quantity.

The press is the exclusive literature of the million; to them it is literature, church, and college.

Republics exist only on the tenure of being constantly agitated ... There is no republican road to safety but in constant distrust.

Government arrogates to itself that it alone forms men. Everybody knows that government never began anything. It is the whole world that thinks and governs.

Difference of religion breeds more quarrels than difference of politics.

Education is the only interest worthy the deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful man.

The labor movement means just this: it is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth.

Boredom, after all, is a form of criticism.

The best education in the world is that got by struggling to get a living.

Our agitation, you know, helps keep yours alive in the rank and file.

There is a very broad theory that society gets the right to hang, as the individual gets the right to defend himself. Suppose she does; there are certain principles which limit this right. Society has got the murderer within four walls; he never can do any more harm. Has society any need to take that man's life to protect itself? If any society has only the right that the individual has, she has no right to inflict the penalty of death, because she can effectually restrain the individual from ever again committing his offence.

Neither do I acknowledge the right of Plymouth to the whole rock. No, the rock underlies all America: it only crops out here.

Seldom ever was any knowledge given to keep, but to impart; the grace of this rich jewel is lost in concealment.

It is easy to be independent when all behind you agree with you, but the difficulty comes when nine hundred and ninety-nine of your friends think you are wrong.

Never forgive at the ballot box!

I will utter what I believe today, if it should contradict all I said yesterday.

Law is nothing unless close behind it stands a warm, living public opinion.

Experience is a safe light to walk by, and he is not a rash man who expects to succeed in future from the same means which have secured it in times past.

Freedom to preach was first gained, dragging in its train freedom to print.

When I want to find the vanguard of the people I look to the uneasy dreams of an aristocracy and find what they dread most.

The best use of good laws is to teach men to trample bad laws under their feet.

We live under a government of men and morning newspapers.

What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first step to something better.

Will the slave fight? If any man asks you, tell him No. But if anyone asks you will a Negro fight, tell him Yes!

If you want to be an orator, first get your great cause.

What the Puritans gave the world was not thought, but action.

The keener the want the lustier the growth.

Revolutions are not made: they come. A revolution is as natural a growth as an oak. It comes out of the past. Its foundations are laid far back.

God gives manhood but one clew to success,
utter and exact justice; that he guarantees shall be always expediency.

If there is anything in the universe that can't stand discussion, let it crack.

What gunpowder did for war, the printing press has done for the mind.

Sin is not taken out of man, as Eve was out of Adam, by putting him to sleep.

Right is the eternal sun; the world cannot delay its coming.

Two kinds of men generally best succeed in political life; men of no principle, but of great talent; and men of no talent, but of one principle - that of obedience to their superiors.

Physical bravery is an animal instinct; moral bravery is much higher and truer courage.

The heritage of the past is the seed that brings forth the harvest of the future.

Aristocracy is always cruel.

The heart beats louder and the soul hears quicker in silence and solitude.

The republic which sinks to sleep, trusting to constitutions and machinery, to politicians and statesmen, for the safety of its liberties, never will have any.

Write on my gravestone: 'Infidel, Traitor.', infidel to every church that compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that oppresses the people.

The Puritan's idea of hell is a place where everybody has to mind his own business.

To be as good as our fathers we must be better, imitation is not discipleship.

Republics exist only on tenure of being agitated.

Whether in chains or in laurels, liberty knows nothing but victories.

The heart is the best logician.

Immoral laws are doubtless void, and should not be obeyed.

No free people can lose their liberties while they are jealous of liberty. But the liberties of the freest people are in danger when they set up symbols of liberty as fetishes, worshipping the symbol instead of the principle it represents.

Let me make the newspapers, and I care not what is preached in the pulpit or what is enacted in Congress.

To hear some men talk of the government, you would suppose that Congress was the law of gravitation, and kept the planets in their places.

Many know how to flatter, few know how to praise.

Health lies in labor, and there is no royal road to it but through toil.

Peace, if possible, but justice at any rate.

You can always get the truth from an American statesman after he has turned seventy, or given up all hope of the Presidency.

Let us always remember that he does not really believe his own opinion, who dares not give free scope to his opponent.

Baron Grimm declared that, as a rule, it was easy for little minds to attain splendid positions, because they devoted all their ability to the one object.

Brains and character rule the world. The most distinguished Frenchman of the last century said: Men succeed less by their talents than their character. There were scores of men a hundred years ago who had more intellect than Washington. He outlives and overrides them all by the influence of his character.

Hearts are stronger than swords.

What is fanaticism today is the fashionable creed tomorrow, and trite as the multiplication table a week after.

How prudently most men creep into nameless graves, while now and then one or two forget themselves into immortality.

Government is only a necessary evil, like other go-carts and crutches. Our need of it shows exactly how far we are still children. All governing overmuch kills the self-help and energy of the governed.

The work resembles a breech delivery-one which is expressed in rhythmic lurches, stabs of phrase and vocal ornamentation designed to express agitation rather than decorative grace.

Though plunged in ills and exercised in care,
Yet never let the noble mind despair.

Revolutions never go backwards.

Power is every stealing from the many to the few.

Take the whole range of imaginative literature, and we are all wholesale borrowers. In every matter that relates to invention, to use, or beauty or form, we are borrowers.

One on God's side is a majority.