Wendell Phillips Quotes - Page 4

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• 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.

  Wendell Phillips

  Wall, Men, Principles

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• 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.

  Wendell Phillips

  Men, Law, Aggravation

  Wendell Phillips (1864). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters”, p.305

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

  Wendell Phillips

  College, Church, Literature

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• 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.

  Wendell Phillips

  Fighting, Government, Ideas

  Wendell Phillips (1864). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters”, p.14

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• 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.

  Wendell Phillips

  Father, Cracks, Pieces

  Wendell Phillips (1864). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters”, p.231

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

  Wendell Phillips

  Political, Progress, World

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• 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.

  Wendell Phillips

  War, Reading, Men

  Wendell Phillips (1864). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters”, p.40

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• 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.

  Wendell Phillips

  Mind, Littles, Easy

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

  Wendell Phillips

  Firsts, Print, Train

  Wendell Phillips (1864). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters”, p.9

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

  Wendell Phillips

  War, Agitation, Alive

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• The keener the want the lustier the growth.

  Wendell Phillips

  Growth, Want

  Wendell Phillips (1861). “Disunion: 2 discourses”, p.28

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• Insurrection of thought always precedes the insurrection of arms.

  Wendell Phillips

  Arms, Insurrection

  "Speeches, Lectures, and Letters".

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

  Wendell Phillips

  World, Action, Puritan

  Wendell Phillips (1864). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters”, p.229

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• We live under a government of men and morning newspapers.

  Wendell Phillips

  Morning, Men, Government

  Wendell Phillips (1864). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters”, p.47

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

  Wendell Phillips

  Safety, Republic, Distrust

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• 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.

  Wendell Phillips

  Character, Men, Years

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

  Wendell Phillips

  Given, Statesmen, Presidency

  Wendell Phillips (1864). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters”, p.309

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

  Wendell Phillips

  Horse, Political, Politics

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

  Wendell Phillips

  Want, Firsts, Causes

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

  Wendell Phillips

  Political, Pulse, Fever

  Wendell Phillips (1864). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters”, p.152

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

  Wendell Phillips

  War, Law, Public Opinion

  Wendell Phillips (1864). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters”, p.264

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• Revolutions never go backwards.

  Wendell Phillips

  Revolution, Backwards

  "Speech". February 17, 1861.

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• Example acquires tenfold authority when it speaks from the grave.

  Wendell Phillips

  Example, Speak, Authority

  Wendell Phillips (1864). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters”, p.114

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

  Wendell Phillips

  Mind, Despair, Noble

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• 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.

  Wendell Phillips

  Beauty, Writing, Matter

  Wendell Phillips (1969). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters, Second Series”, Ayer Company Pub

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