Wendell Phillips
We live under a government of men and morning newspapers.Collection: Morning
To be as good as our fathers we must be better, imitation is not discipleship.Collection: Fathers
Today it is not big business that we have to fear. It is big government.Collection: Fear
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few.Collection: Power
Physical bravery is an animal instinct; moral bravery is much higher and truer courage.Collection: Courage
Seldom ever was any knowledge given to keep, but to impart; the grace of this rich jewel is lost in concealment.Collection: Knowledge
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.Collection: Government
Responsibility educates.Collection: Education
What is defeat? Nothing but education. Nothing but the first step to something better.Collection: Education
Whether in chains or in laurels, liberty knows nothing but victories.Collection: Freedom
What gunpowder did for war the printing press has done for the mind.Collection: War
Every step of progress the world has made has been from scaffold to scaffold, and from stake to stake.
One on God's side is a majority.
Many know how to flatter, few know how to praise.
Exigencies create the necessary ability to meet and conquer them.
Agitation is the atmosphere of the brains.
Boredom, after all, is a form of criticism.
Governments exist to protect the rights of minorities. The loved and the rich need no protection: they have many friends and few enemies.
The labor movement means just this: it is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth.
Christianity is a battle not a dream.
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.
Law is nothing unless close behind it stands a warm, living public opinion.
Aristocracy is always cruel.
What is fanaticism today is the fashionable creed tomorrow, and trite as the multiplication table a week after.
Insurrection of thought always precedes insurrection of arms.
The best education in the world is that got by struggling to get a living.
Truth is one forever absolute, but opinion is truth filtered through the moods, the blood, the disposition of the spectator.
Difference of religion breeds more quarrels than difference of politics.
If you want to be an orator, first get your great cause.
The heart is the best reflective thinker.
The keener the want the lustier the growth.
Power is every stealing from the many to the few.
What the Puritans gave the world was not thought, but action.
If there is anything in the universe that can't stand discussion, let it crack.
Let me make the newspapers, and I care not what is preached in the pulpit or what is enacted in Congress.
Debt is the fatal disease of republics, the first thing and the mightiest to undermine governments and corrupt the people.
You can always get the truth from an American statesman after he has turned seventy, or given up all hope of the Presidency.
What is defeat? Nothing but education, nothing but the first step to something better.Collection: Inspirational
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few. The manna of popular liberty must be gathered each day or it is rotten. The living sap of today outgrows the dead rind of yesterday. The hand entrusted with power becomes, either form human depravity or esprit de corps, the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continued oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot; only by unintermitted agitation can a people be sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity.Collection: Hands
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.Collection: Mean
The heritage of the past is the seed that brings forth the harvest of the future.Collection: Past
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.Collection: Community
There is nothing stronger than human prejudice.Collection: Stronger
Write on my gravestone: 'Infidel, Traitor.', infidel to every church that compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that oppresses the people.Collection: Writing
The penny-papers of New York do more to govern this country than the White House at Washington.Collection: Country
Let us always remember that he does not really believe his own opinion, who dares not give free scope to his opponent.Collection: Believe
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.Collection: Past
I will utter what I believe today, if it should contradict all I said yesterday.Collection: Believe
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.Collection: Independent
Will the slave fight? If any man asks you, tell him No. But if anyone asks you will a Negro fight, tell him Yes!Collection: Fighting