The press is the exclusive literature of the million; to them it is literature, church, and college.
Wendell PhillipsSociety,--the only field where the sexes have ever met on terms of equality, the arena where character is formed and studied, the cradle and the realm of public opinion, the crucible of ideas, the world's university, at once a school and a theater, the spur and the crown of ambition, the tribunal which unmasks pretension and stamps real merit, the power that gives government leave to be, and outruns the lazy Church in fixing the moral sense of the eye.
Wendell PhillipsWill the slave fight? If any man asks you, tell him No. But if anyone asks you will a Negro fight, tell him Yes!
Wendell PhillipsThe reformer is careless of numbers, disregards popularity, and deals only with ideas, conscience, and common sense. He feels, with Copernicus, that as God waited long for an interpreter, so he can wait for his followers.
Wendell PhillipsThere is nothing stronger than human prejudice. A crazy sentimentalism, like that of Peter the Hermit, hurled half of Europe upon Asia, and changed the destinies of kingdoms.
Wendell PhillipsWrite on my gravestone: 'Infidel, Traitor.', infidel to every church that compromises with wrong; traitor to every government that oppresses the people.
Wendell PhillipsEternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few.
Wendell PhillipsGovernment is only a necessary evil, like other go-carts and crutches. Our need of it shows exactly how far we are still children. All governing overmuch kills the self-help and energy of the governed.
Wendell PhillipsAgitation 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.
Wendell PhillipsOrganize, and stand together. Claim something together, and at once; let the nation hear a united demand from the laboring voice, and then, when you have got that, go on after another; but get something.
Wendell PhillipsYou can always get the truth from an American statesman after he has turned seventy, or given up all hope of the Presidency.
Wendell PhillipsWants awaken intellect. To gratify them disciplines intellect. The keener the want the lustier the growth.
Wendell PhillipsDebt is the fatal disease of republics, the first thing and the mightiest to undermine governments and corrupt the people.
Wendell PhillipsNo 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.
Wendell PhillipsThe 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 PhillipsWhat is fanaticism today is the fashionable creed tomorrow, and trite as the multiplication table a week after.
Wendell PhillipsThe Puritan's idea of hell is a place where everybody has to mind his own business.
Wendell PhillipsEternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few. The manna of popular liberty must be gathered each day or it is rotten. The living sap of today outgrows the dead rind of yesterday. The hand entrusted with power becomes, either form human depravity or esprit de corps, the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continued oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot; only by unintermitted agitation can a people be sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity.
Wendell PhillipsGreat 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 PhillipsPhysical bravery is an animal instinct; moral bravery is much higher and truer courage.
Wendell PhillipsTwo kinds of men generally best succeed in political life; men of no principle, but of great talent; and men of no talent, but of one principle - that of obedience to their superiors.
Wendell PhillipsThere is a very broad theory that society gets the right to hang, as the individual gets the right to defend himself. Suppose she does; there are certain principles which limit this right. Society has got the murderer within four walls; he never can do any more harm. Has society any need to take that man's life to protect itself? If any society has only the right that the individual has, she has no right to inflict the penalty of death, because she can effectually restrain the individual from ever again committing his offence.
Wendell PhillipsRevolutions 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 PhillipsTo 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 PhillipsThe labor movement means just this: It is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth.
Wendell PhillipsRepublics exist only on the tenure of being constantly agitated.... There is no republican road to safety but in constant distrust.
Wendell PhillipsHow prudently most men creep into nameless graves, while now and then one or two forget themselves into immortality.
Wendell Phillips