Top 122 Quotes & Sayings by Wendell Phillips - Page 2

The paleontological evidence before us today clearly demonstrates ordered progressive change with the successive development of new faunal and floral assemblages through the changing epochs of our earth's history. There should be no real conflict between science, which is the search for truth, and Christ's teachings, which I hold to be truth itself. It is only when scientists remove God from creation that the Christian is faced with an irreconcilable situation.

The community which does not protect its humblest and most hated member in the free utterance of his opinions, no matter how false or hateful, is only a gang of slaves. If there is anything in the universe that can't stand discussion, let it crack.

Popular opinion is oftenest, what Carlyle pronounced it to be, a lie!

Agitation prevents rebellion, keeps the peace, and secures progress. Every step she gains is gained forever. Muskets are the weapons of animals. Agitation is the atmosphere of the brains.

Republics exist only on tenure of being agitated.

Every government is always growing corrupt.

Never forgive at the ballot box!

Liberty knows nothing but victories. Soldiers call Bunker Hill a defeat; but liberty dates from it though Warren lay dead on the field.

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

The man who, for party, forsakes righteousness, goes down; and the armed battalions of God march over him.

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

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

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

On a single winged word hath hung the destiny of nations.

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

Example acquires tenfold authority when it speaks from the grave.

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

The slowest of us cannot but admit that the world moves.

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

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.

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.

Revolutions are not made, they come.

War and Niagara thunder to a music of their own.

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

A large body of people, sufficient to make a nation, have come to the conclusion that they will have a government of a certain form. Who denies them the right? Standing with the principles of '76 behind us, who can deny them the right? ... I maintain on the principles of '76 that Abraham Lincoln has no right to a soldier in Fort Sumter. ... You can never make such a war popular. ... The North never will endorse such a war.

Revolutions never go backwards.

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.

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.

Revolution is the only thing, the only power, that ever worked out freedom for any people. The powers that have ruled long and learned to love ruling, will never give up that prerogative until they must, till they see the certainty of overthrow and destruction if they do not. To plant-to revolutionize-these are the twin stars that have ruled our pathway. What have we then to dread in the word Revolution-we, the children of rebels!

It is but the littleness of man that seeth no greatness in trifles.

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

Peace, if possible, but justice at any rate.

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.

No class is safe unless government is so arranged that each class has in its hands the means of protecting itself. That is the idea of republics.

Wants awaken intellect. To gratify them disciplines intellect. The keener the want the lustier the growth.

To be as good as our fathers, we must be better. Imitation is not discipleship. When some one sent a cracked plate to China to have a set made, every piece in the new set had a crack in it.

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

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

Government began in tyranny and force, began in the feudalism of the soldier and bigotry of the priest; and the ideas of justice and humanity have been fighting their way, like a thunderstorm, against the organized selfishness of human nature.

What gunpowder did for war, the printing-press has done for the mind; and the statesman is no longer clad in the steel of special education, but every reading man is his judge.

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

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.

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

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

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

Insurrection of thought always precedes the insurrection of arms.

The heart is the best logician.

Politics is but the common pulse-beat, of which revolution is the fever-spasm.

Every man meets his Waterloo at last.

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

The Puritan did not stop to think; he recognized God in his soul, and acted.

Political convulsions, like geological upheavings usher in new epochs of the world's progress.

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.

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.

The reformer is careless of numbers, disregards popularity, and deals only with ideas, conscience, and common sense. He feels, with Copernicus, that as God waited long for an interpreter, so he can wait for his followers.

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

It is only liquid currents of thought that move men and the world

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.

Eternal vigilence is the price of liberty.

Politicians are like the bones of a horse's foreshoulder-not a straight one in it.