Wendell Phillips's Quotes

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

Let me make the newspapers, and I care not what is preached in the pulpit or what is enacted in Congress.

One on God's side is a majority.

Seldom ever was any knowledge given to keep, but to impart; the grace of this rich jewel is lost in concealment.

The best education in the world is that got by struggling to get a living.

The keener the want the lustier the growth.

The labor movement means just this: it is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth.

Truth is one forever absolute, but opinion is truth filtered through the moods, the blood, the disposition of the spectator.

We live under a government of men and morning newspapers.

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

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

Whether in chains or in laurels, liberty knows nothing but victories.

Physical bravery is an animal instinct; moral bravery is much higher and truer courage.

Responsibility educates.

Debt is the fatal disease of republics, the first thing and the mightiest to undermine governments and corrupt the people.

Many know how to flatter, few know how to praise.

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.

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

To be as good as our fathers we must be better, imitation is not discipleship.

Today it is not big business that we have to fear. It is big government.

What is defeat? Nothing but education. Nothing but the first step to something better.

Boredom, after all, is a form of criticism.

Exigencies create the necessary ability to meet and conquer them.

Power is every stealing from the many to the few.

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

Difference of religion breeds more quarrels than difference of politics.