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

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
Stands
Living
Warm
War
Close
Behinds
Nothing
Unless
Behind
Opinion
Public

More quotes by Wendell Phillips

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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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War and Niagara thunder to a music of their own.
Wendell Phillips
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The work resembles a breech delivery-one which is expressed in rhythmic lurches, stabs of phrase and vocal ornamentation designed to express agitation rather than decorative grace.
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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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Wants awaken intellect. To gratify them disciplines intellect. The keener the want the lustier the growth.
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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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It is but the littleness of man that seeth no greatness in trifles.
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Brains and character rule the world. The most distinguished Frenchman of the last century said: Men succeed less by their talents than their character. There were scores of men a hundred years ago who had more intellect than Washington. He outlives and overrides them all by the influence of his character.
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To be as good as our fathers, we must be better. Imitation is not discipleship. When some one sent a cracked plate to China to have a set made, every piece in the new set had a crack in it.
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Republics exist only on the tenure of being constantly agitated.... There is no republican road to safety but in constant distrust.
Wendell Phillips
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Politics is but the common pulse-beat, of which revolution is the fever-spasm.
Wendell Phillips
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Truth is one forever absolute, but opinion is truth filtered through the moods, the blood, the disposition of the spectator.
Wendell Phillips
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Example acquires tenfold authority when it speaks from the grave.
Wendell Phillips
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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
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The Puritan did not stop to think he recognized God in his soul, and acted.
Wendell Phillips
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Debt is the fatal disease of republics, the first thing and the mightiest to undermine governments and corrupt the people.
Wendell Phillips
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Revolutions are not made: they come. A revolution is as natural a growth as an oak. It comes out of the past. Its foundations are laid far back.
Wendell Phillips
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Right is the eternal sun the world cannot delay its coming.
Wendell Phillips
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What is defeat? Nothing but education, nothing but the first step to something better.
Wendell Phillips
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The penny-papers of New York do more to govern this country than the White House at Washington.
Wendell Phillips