Wendell Phillips Quotes - Page 3

Statutes are mere milestone, telling how far yesterday's thought had traveled; and the talk of the sidewalk today is the law of the land. With us, law in nothing unless close behind it stands a warm, living public opinion.

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

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.

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

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 condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.

Agitation is the atmosphere of the brains.

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

Revolutions are not made, they come.

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

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.

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

Eternal vigilence is the price of liberty.

The heart is the best logician.

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

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

Boredom, after all, is a form of criticism.

Aristocracy is always cruel.

There is nothing stronger than human prejudice. A crazy sentimentalism, like that of Peter the Hermit, hurled half of Europe upon Asia, and changed the destinies of kingdoms.

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

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.

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

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.

Peace, if possible, but justice at any rate.

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