Wendell Phillips (November 29, 1811 – February 2, 1884) was an American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator, and attorney.
Two 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.
What the Puritans gave the world was not thought, but action.
Common sense does not ask an impossible chessboard, but takes the one before it and plays the game.
It is only liquid currents of thought that move men and the world
The Puritan's idea of hell is a place where everybody has to mind his own business.
Health lies in labor, and there is no royal road to it but through toil.
Sin is not taken out of man, as Eve was out of Adam, by putting him to sleep.
Government 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.
The best education in the world is that got by struggling to get a living.
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few.
Boredom, after all, is a form of criticism.
Republics exist only on the tenure of being constantly agitated. . . . There is no republican road to safety but in constant distrust.
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.
Education is the only interest worthy the deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful man.
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.
The Puritan did not stop to think; he recognized God in his soul, and acted.
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.
Republics exist only on tenure of being agitated.
Immoral laws are doubtless void, and should not be obeyed.
The keener the want the lustier the growth.