Daniel O'Connell Quotes

• I will go on quietly and slowly, but I will go on firmly, and with a certainty of success.

  Daniel O'Connell

  Goes On, Certainty

  Daniel O'Connell (1872). “Life and Speeches of Daniel O'Connell ....: Including Many Speeches Not in Other Collections”, p.187

  67 Copy quote

• Gentlemen, you may soon have the alternative to live as slaves or die as free men

  Daniel O'Connell

  Men, Gentleman, Alternatives

  66 Copy quote

• The principle of my political life ... is that all amelioration and improvements in political institutions can be obtained by persevering in a perfectly peaceable and legal course, and cannot be obtained by forcible means, or if they could be got by forcible means, such means create more evils than they cure, and leave the country worse than they found it.

  Daniel O'Connell

  Country, Mean, Evil

  41 Copy quote

• The altar of liberty totters when it is cemented only with blood

  Daniel O'Connell

  Blood, Liberty, Altars

  Daniel O'Connell (1906). “Daniel O'Connell: His Early Life, and Journal, 1795 to 1802”

  47 Copy quote

• Whoever commits a crime strengthens his enemy.

  Daniel O'Connell

  Enemy, Crime, Commit

  35 Copy quote

• The poor old Duke [of Wellington]! What shall I say of him? To be sure he was born in Ireland, but being born in a stable does not make a man a horse.

  Daniel O'Connell

  Horse, Men, Doe

  46 Copy quote

• I want to make all Europe and America know it - I want to make England feel her weakness if she refuses to give the justice we the Irish require - the restoration of our domestic parliament.

  Daniel O'Connell

  Europe And America, Giving, Justice

  Speech given at a 'monster' meeting held at Drogheda, June, 1843.

  56 Copy quote

• Although the Irish language is connected with the many recollections that twine around the hearts of Irishmen, yet the superior utility of the English tongue, as the medium of all modern communication, is so great that I can witness without a sigh the gradual decline of the Irish language.

  Daniel O'Connell

  Communication, Heart, History

  41 Copy quote

• No person knows better than you do that the domination of England is the sole and blighting curse of this country. It is the incubus that sits on our energies, stops the pulsation of the nation's heart and leaves to Ireland not gay vitality but horrid the convulsions of a troubled dream.

  Daniel O'Connell

  Dream, Country, Heart

  "O'Connell Correspondence, Vol IV". Book by Daniel O'Connell, Letter to Bishop Doyle (N. 1860), 1831.

  41 Copy quote

• Every religion is good—every religion is true to him who in his good caution and conscience believes it.

  Daniel O'Connell

  Believe, Caution, Conscience

  Daniel O'Connell (1854). “The Select Speeches of Daniel O'Connell, M. P.”, p.252

  48 Copy quote

• There is an utter ignorance of, and indifference to, our sufferings and privations....What care they for us, provided we be submissive, pay the taxes, furnish recruits for the Army and Navy and bless the masters who either despise or oppress or combine both? The apathy that exists respecting Ireland is worse than the national antipathy they bear us.

  Daniel O'Connell

  Ignorance, Army, Suffering

  34 Copy quote

• How cruel the Penal Laws are which exclude me from a fair trial with men whom I look upon as so much my inferiors.

  Daniel O'Connell

  Men, Law, Looks

  "The correspondence of Daniel O'Connell, Vol. II". Book by Daniel O'Connell, Irish Manuscripts Commission, Letter N. 700, 1972.

  36 Copy quote

• My days – the blossom of my youth and the flower of my manhood – have been darkened by the dreariness of servitude. In this my native land – in the land of my sires – I am degraded without fault as an alien and an outcast.

  Daniel O'Connell

  Flower, Land, Faults

  Daniel O'Connell (1854). “The Select Speeches of Daniel O'Connell, M. P.”, p.81

  31 Copy quote

• No man was ever a good soldier but the man who goes into the battle determined to conquer, or not to come back from the battle field (cheers). No other principle makes a good soldier.

  Daniel O'Connell

  Cheer, Men, Soldier

  William Edward White, Daniel O'Connell (1954). “Daniel O'Connell's Oratory on Repeal”

  28 Copy quote

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