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Wendell Phillips
22 quotes
“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 (1811–1884) first seen 1852 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech before the Massachusetts Antislavery Society (28 January 1852), published in Speeches, Letters and Lectures by Wendell Phillips (1884), p. 36
“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.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1852 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Anti-Slavery Speech (January 1852), in The Works of Wendell Phillips (1902), pp. 22-23
“The best use of laws is to teach men to trample bad laws under their feet.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1852 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the Melodeon, on the first anniversary of the rendition of Thomas Sims (12 April 12 1852), in Speeches, Letters and Lectures by Wendell Phillips (1884), p. 91
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty — power is ever stealing from the many to the few....The hand entrusted with power becomes...the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continual oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot: only by unintermitted Agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1852 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech in Boston, Massachusetts (28 January 1852), in Speeches Before the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society (1853), p. 13. The key phrase, "eternal vigilance is the price of liberty", was not in quotation marks in the …
“What the Puritans gave the world was not thought, but action.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1855 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech at the dinner of the Pilgrim Society (21 December 1855), in Speeches, Letters and Lectures by Wendell Phillips (1884), p. 229
“Truth is one forever, absolute; but opinion is truth filtered through the moods, the blood, the disposition, of the spectator.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1859 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Fraternity lecture delivered in Boston (4 October 1859), in Speeches, Letters and Lectures by Wendell Phillips (1884), p. 245
“In God's world there are no majorities, no minorities; one, on God's side, is a majority.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1859 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lecture at Brooklyn, NY (November 1, 1859); in Speeches, Letters and Lectures by Wendell Phillips (1884), p. 274
“Every man meets his Waterloo at last.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1859 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lecture at Brooklyn (November 1, 1859)
“Whether in chains or in laurels, Liberty knows nothing but victories.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1859 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Lecture at Brooklyn (November 1, 1859)
“Difference of religion breeds more quarrels than difference of politics.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1860 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speech (November 7, 1860)
“I think the first duty of society is justice.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Disunion (January 21, 1861)
“Revolutions never go backward.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Address delivered before the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society in Music Hall, Boston (February 17, 1861); in Speeches, Letters and Lectures by Wendell Phillips (1884), p. 380
“[T]he Negro race, instead of being that object of pity or contempt which we usually consider it, is entitled, judged by the facts of history, to a place close by the side of the Saxon.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Toussaint L'Ouverture" (December 1861)
“[R]aces love to be judged in two ways—by the great men they produce, and by the average merit of the mass of the race.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Toussaint L'Ouverture" (December 1861)
“Aristocracy is always cruel.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1861 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Toussaint L'Ouverture" (December 1861)
“He who stifles free discussion, secretly doubts whether what he professes to believe is really true.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1870 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Oration delivered at Daniel O'Connell celebration, Boston (6 August 1870); in William Carlos Martyn, Wendell Phillips: The Agitator (1890), p. 563
“Corruption does not so much rot the masses: it poisons Congress. Credit-Mobilier and money rings are not housed under thatched roofs: they flaunt at the Capitol. As usual in chemistry, the scum floats uppermost.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Scholar in a Republic", address at the centennial anniversary of the Phi Beta Kappa of Harvard College (June 30, 1881)
“The agitator must stand outside of organizations, with no bread to earn, no candidate to elect, no party to save, no object but truth — to tear a question open and riddle it with light.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Scholar in a Republic" (June 30, 1881)
“To be as good as our fathers we must be better.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Scholar in a Republic" (June 30, 1881)
“Sit not, like the figure on our silver coin, looking ever backward.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) first seen 1881 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Scholar in a Republic" (June 30, 1881)
“Revolutions are not made; they come.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) said by 1884 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source
“One on God's side is a majority.”
Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) said by 1884 at the latest bartlett, Public domain source