Wendell Phillips Quotes

48 Sourced Quotes

What gunpowder did for war the printing press has done for the mind.

Wendell Phillips
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few.

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

Wendell Phillips
What is defeat? Nothing but education, nothing but the first step to something better.

Wendell Phillips
Government is only a necessary evil, like other go-carts and crutches. Our need of it shows exactly how far we are still children. All governing overmuch kills the self-help and energy of the governed.

Wendell Phillips
Difference of religion breeds more quarrels than difference of politics.

Wendell Phillips
Experience is a safe light to walk by, and he is not a rash man who expects to succeed in future from the same means which have secured it in times past.

Wendell Phillips
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
The republic which sinks to sleep, trusting to constitutions and machinery, to politicians and statesmen, for the safety of its liberties, never will have any.

Wendell Phillips
What is fanaticism today is the fashionable creed tomorrow, and trite as the multiplication table a week after.

Wendell Phillips
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
Wants awaken intellect. To gratify them disciplines intellect. The keener the want the lustier the growth.

Wendell Phillips
The penny-papers of New York do more to govern this country than the White House at Washington.

Wendell Phillips
Education is the only interest worthy the deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful man.

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

Wendell Phillips
Example acquires tenfold authority when it speaks from the grave.

Wendell Phillips
The Puritan did not stop to think; he recognized God in his soul, and acted.

Wendell Phillips
There is nothing stronger than human prejudice. A crazy sentimentalism, like that of Peter the Hermit, hurled half of Europe upon Asia, and changed the destinies of kingdoms.

Wendell Phillips
God gives manhood but one clew to success,--utter and exact justice; that he guarantees shall be always expediency.

Wendell Phillips
Let us always remember that he does not really believe his own opinion, who dares not give free scope to his opponent.

Wendell Phillips
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.

Wendell Phillips
Agitation prevents rebellion, keeps the peace, and secures progress. Every step she gains is gained forever. Muskets are the weapons of animals. Agitation is the atmosphere of the brains.

Wendell Phillips
Sin is not taken out of man, as Eve was out of Adam, by putting him to sleep.

Wendell Phillips
Health lies in labor, and there is no royal road to it but through toil.

Wendell Phillips
Insurrection of thought always precedes insurrection of arms.

Wendell Phillips
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.

Wendell Phillips
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
When I look upon these crowded thousands, and see them trample on their consciences and the rights of their fellow-men at the bidding of a piece of parchment, I say my curse be on the Constitution of these United States.

Wendell Phillips
More than all other people, we are afraid of each other.

Wendell Phillips
The best use of laws is to teach men to trample bad laws under their feet.

Wendell Phillips