Rufus Choate Quotes

• Happy is he who has laid up in his youth, and held fast in all fortune, a genuine and passionate love of reading.

  Rufus Choate

  Reading, Passionate, Youth

  Rufus Choate's speech at the dedication of the Peabody Institute, September 29, 1854.

  52 Copy quote

• We have built no temple but the Capitol. We consult no common oracle but the Constitution.

  Rufus Choate

  Oracles, Temples, Common

  Rufus Choate, Samuel Gilman Brown (1862). “Memoir. Lectures and addresses”, p.345

  6 Copy quote

• Anything more low, obscene, feculent, the manifold heaving's of history have not cast up. We shall come to the worship of onions, cats and things vermiculite.

  Rufus Choate

  Cat, Onions, Worship

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• Power, carried to extremes, is always liable to reaction.

  Rufus Choate

  Power, Liable, Reactions

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• I will look, your Honor, and endeavor to find a precedent, if you require it; though it would seem to be a pity that the Court should lose the honor of being the first to establish so just a rule.

  Rufus Choate

  Law, Honor, Looks

  Rufus Choate, Samuel Gilman Brown (1862). “Memoir. Lectures and addresses”, p.292

  8 Copy quote

• Neither irony nor sarcasm is argument.

  Rufus Choate

  Sarcasm, Irony, Argument

  "Dictionary of American Maxims". Book by David George Plotkin, 1955.

  10 Copy quote

• You don't want a diction gathered from the newspapers, caught from the air, common and unsuggestive; but you want one whose every word is full-freighted with suggestion and association, with beauty and power.

  Rufus Choate

  Air, Want, Association

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, (p. 481), 1895.

  6 Copy quote

• A book is the only immortality.

  Rufus Choate

  Reading, Book, Immortality

  "Part of a Man's Life". Book by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, 1905.

  8 Copy quote

• Its Constitution--the glittering and sounding generalities of natural right which make up the Declaration of Independence.

  Rufus Choate

  Independence, Oratory, Constitution

  Letter to Maine Whig State Central Committee, 9 Aug. 1856

  68 Copy quote

• There was a state without king or nobles; there was a church without a bishop; there was a people governed by grave magistrates which it had selected, and by equal laws which it had framed.

  Rufus Choate

  Kings, Law, People

  Rufus Choate, Samuel Gilman Brown (1862). “The Works of Rufus Choate, with a Memoir of His Life: Memoir. Lectures and addresses”, p.379

  7 Copy quote

• We join ourselves to no party that does not carry the flag and I keep step to the music of the Union.

  Rufus Choate

  Party, Patriotism, Doe

  Rufus Choate, Samuel Gilman Brown (1862). “The Works of Rufus Choate, with a Memoir of His Life: Memoir. Lectures and addresses”, p.201

  6 Copy quote

• Knowledge is power as well as fame.

  Rufus Choate

  Knowledge, Fame, Knowledge Is Power

  Rufus Choate, Samuel Gilman Brown (1862). “Memoir. Lectures and addresses”, p.410

  4 Copy quote

• No lawyer can afford to be ignorant of the Bible.

  Rufus Choate

  Ignorant, Lawyer, Bible Study

  5 Copy quote

• Appropriated to justice, to security, to reason, to restraint; where there is no respect of persons; where will is nothing and power is nothing and numbers are nothing, and all are equal and all secure before the law.

  Rufus Choate

  Equality, Numbers, Law

  Rufus Choate (1883). “Addresses and Orations of Rufus Choate”

  4 Copy quote

• The final end of government is not to exert restraint but to do good.

  Rufus Choate

  Government, Finals, Ends

  Rufus Choate, Samuel Gilman Brown (1862). “Memoir. Lectures and addresses”, p.53

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• Mathematics may, be briefly defined as the science of quantities, and is one of the most important of disciplining studies which engage the practical student.

  Rufus Choate

  Important, May, Students

  4 Copy quote

• All that happens in the world of Nature or Man, - every war; every peace; every hour of prosperity; every hour of adversity; every election; every death ; every life; every success and every failure, - all change, - all permanence, - the perished leaf; the unutterable glory of stars, - all things speak truth to the thoughtful spirit.

  Rufus Choate

  Stars, War, Adversity

  Rufus Choate, Samuel Gilman Brown (1862). “The Works of Rufus Choate, with a Memoir of His Life: Memoir. Lectures and addresses”, p.395

  4 Copy quote

• The courage of New England was the courage of conscience. It did not rise to that insane and awful passion, the love of war for itself.

  Rufus Choate

  War, Passion, Insane

  Rufus Choate (2002). “The Political Writings of Rufus Choate”, p.52, Regnery Gateway

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