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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.
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
Opinion
Warm
Public
Telling
Law
Mere
Statutes
Talk
Close
Milestone
Living
Behinds
Sidewalk
Thought
Unless
Traveled
Today
Behind
Stands
Nothing
Land
Yesterday
More quotes by Wendell Phillips
The hand entrusted with power becomes, either from human depravity or esprit de corps, the necessary enemy of the people
Wendell Phillips
Will the slave fight? If any man asks you, tell him No. But if anyone asks you will a Negro fight, tell him Yes!
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War and Niagara thunder to a music of their own.
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Right is the eternal sun the world cannot delay its coming.
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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.
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The best education in the world is that got by struggling to get a living.
Wendell Phillips
Republics exist only on the tenure of being constantly agitated.... There is no republican road to safety but in constant distrust.
Wendell Phillips
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.
Wendell Phillips
Though plunged in ills and exercised in care, Yet never let the noble mind despair.
Wendell Phillips
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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The best use of good laws is to teach men to trample bad laws under their feet.
Wendell Phillips
Government arrogates to itself that it alone forms men. Everybody knows that government never began anything. It is the whole world that thinks and governs.
Wendell Phillips
What gunpowder did for war the printing press has done for the mind.
Wendell Phillips
Great political questions stir the deepest nature of one-half the nation, but they pass far above and over the heads of the other half.
Wendell Phillips
Exigencies create the necessary ability to meet and conquer them.
Wendell Phillips
You can always get the truth from an American statesman after he has turned seventy, or given up all hope of the Presidency.
Wendell Phillips
It is easy to be independent when all behind you agree with you, but the difficulty comes when nine hundred and ninety-nine of your friends think you are wrong.
Wendell Phillips
On a single winged word hath hung the destiny of nations.
Wendell Phillips
The labor movement means just this: It is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth.
Wendell Phillips
If you want to be an orator, first get your great cause.
Wendell Phillips
