Wendell Phillips Quotes - Page 5

The keener the want the lustier the growth.

We live under a government of men and morning newspapers.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Insurrection of thought always precedes the insurrection of arms.

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

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

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.

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.

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