Wendell Phillips Quotes

Difference of religion breeds more quarrels than difference of politics.

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

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

[R]aces love to be judged in two ways—by the great men they produce, and by the average merit of the mass of the race.

Christianity is a battle, not a dream.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty — power is ever stealing from the many to the few…. The hand entrusted with power becomes … the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continual oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot: only by unintermitted Agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity.

The agitator must stand outside of organizations, with no bread to earn, no candidate to elect, no party to save, no object but truth — to tear a question open and riddle it with light.

Corruption does not so much rot the masses: it poisons Congress. Credit-Mobilier and money rings are not housed under thatched roofs: they flaunt at the Capitol. As usual in chemistry, the scum floats uppermost.

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

To be as good as our fathers we must be better.

Revolutions never go backward.

He who stifles free discussion, secretly doubts whether what he professes to believe is really true.

External vigilance is the price of liberty.

Sit not, like the figure on our silver coin, looking ever backward.

Aristocracy is always cruel.