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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.

Wendell Phillips

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Wendell Phillips
Age: 72 †
Born: 1811
Born: November 29
Died: 1884
Died: February 2
Jurist
Lawyer
Politician
Boston
Massachusetts
Law
Gravitation
Talk
Aggravation
Government
Suppose
Would
Kept
Men
Congress
Planets
Places
Hear
Fidgeting

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What gunpowder did for war, the printing-press has done for the mind and the statesman is no longer clad in the steel of special education, but every reading man is his judge.
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The Puritan's idea of hell is a place where everybody has to mind his own business.
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Write on my gravestone: 'Infidel, Traitor.', infidel to every church that compromises with wrong traitor to every government that oppresses the people.
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Boredom, after all, is a form of criticism.
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Politics is but the common pulse-beat, of which revolution is the fever-spasm.
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What is defeat? Nothing but education, nothing but the first step to something better.
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Neither do I acknowledge the right of Plymouth to the whole rock. No, the rock underlies all America: it only crops out here.
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God gives manhood but one clew to success,--utter and exact justice that he guarantees shall be always expediency.
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Political convulsions, like geological upheavings usher in new epochs of the world's progress.
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My advice to a young man seeking deathless fame would be to espouse an unpopular cause and devote his life to it.
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What gunpowder did for war the printing press has done for the mind.
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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.
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Statutes are mere milestone, telling how far yesterday's thought had traveled and the talk of the sidewalk today is the law of the land. With us, law in nothing unless close behind it stands a warm, living public opinion.
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The heart beats louder and the soul hears quicker in silence and solitude.
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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.
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The keener the want the lustier the growth.
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It is only liquid currents of thought that move men and the world
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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.
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Do not take the yardstick of your ignorance to measure what the ancients knew, and call everything which you do not know lies. Do not call things untrue because they are marvelous, but give them a fair consideration.
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Many men know how to flatter, few men know how to praise.
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