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Language is the expression of ideas, and if the people of one country cannot preserve an identity of ideas they cannot retain an identity of language.

Noah Webster

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Noah Webster
Age: 84 †
Born: 1758
Born: October 16
Died: 1843
Died: May 28
Journalist
Lexicographer
Linguist
Politician
Writer
Noah Webster
Jr.
People
Preserve
Preserves
Identity
Expression
Language
Cannot
Ideas
Country
Retain

More quotes by Noah Webster

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In some countries the common people are not permitted to read the Bible at all. In ours, it is as common as a newspaper and in schools is read with nearly the same degree of respect.
Noah Webster
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The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws . . . The religion which has introduced civil liberty is the religion of Christ and his Apostles . . . This is genuine Christianity and to this we owe our free constitutions of government.
Noah Webster
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Language is not an abstract construction of the learned, or of dictionary makers, but is something arising out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, tastes, of long generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and low, close to the ground
Noah Webster
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Whenever a man is known to seek promotion by intrigue, by temporizing, or by resorting to the haunts of vulgarity and vice for support, it may be inferred, with moral certainty, that he is not a man of real respectability, nor is he entitled to public confidence.
Noah Webster
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When you become entitled to exercise the right of voting for public officers, let it be impressed on your mind that God commands you to choose for rulers just men who will rule in the fear of God. The preservation of a republican government depends on the faithful discharge of this duty.
Noah Webster
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Treason is the highest crime of a civil nature of which a man can be guilty.
Noah Webster
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There iz no alternativ. Every possible reezon that could ever be offered for altering the spelling of wurds, stil exists in full force and if a gradual reform should not be made in our language, it wil proov that we are less under the influence of reezon than our ancestors.
Noah Webster
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The Bible was America's basic textbook in all fields.
Noah Webster
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A pure democracy is generally a very bad government, It is often the most tyrannical government on earth for a multitude is often rash, and will not hear reason.
Noah Webster
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The Moral Law is summarily contained in the Decalogue or Ten Commandments written by the finger of God on two tablets of stone, and delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai.
Noah Webster
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It is an object of vast magnitude that systems of education should be adopted and pursued which may not only diffuse a knowledge of the sciences but may implant in the minds of the American youth the principles of virtue and of liberty and inspire them with just and liberal ideas of government and with an inviolable attachment to their own country.
Noah Webster
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The principles of all genuine liberty, and of wise laws and administrations are to be drawn from the Bible and sustained by its authority. The man therefore who weakens or destroys the divine authority of that book may be assessory to all the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer.
Noah Webster
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The liberty of the press, trial by jury, the Habeas Corpus Writ, even Magna Carta itself, although justly deemed the paladia of freedom, are all inferior considerations, when compared with the general distribution of real property among every class of people.
Noah Webster
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Knowledge, learning, talents are not necessarily connected with sound moral and political principles.... And eminent abilities, accompanied with depravity of heart, render the possessor tenfold more dangerous in a community.
Noah Webster
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A national language is a band of national union.
Noah Webster
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Language, as well as the faculty of speech, was the immediate gift of God.
Noah Webster
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The virtues of men are of more consequence to society than their abilities, and for this reason, the heart should be cultivated with more assiduity than the head.
Noah Webster
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Discipline our youth in early life in sound maxims of moral, political, and religious duties.
Noah Webster
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Unaffected modesty is the sweetest charm of female excellence, the richest gem in the diadem of her honor.
Noah Webster
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The education of youth, an employment of more consequence than making laws and preaching the gospel, because it lays the foundation on which both law and gospel rest for success.
Noah Webster