Quotes from Wendell Phillips

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.

Debt is the fatal disease of republics, the first thing and the mightiest to undermine governments and corrupt the people.

My advice to a young man seeking deathless fame would be to espouse an unpopular cause and devote his life to it.

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.

Education is the only interest worthy the deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful man.

Many men know how to flatter, few men know how to praise.

Power is every stealing from the many to the few.

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.

Responsibility educates.

The best education in the world is that got by struggling to get a living.

If you want to be an orator, first get your great cause.

Take the whole range of imaginative literature, and we are all wholesale borrowers. In every matter that relates to invention, to use, or beauty or form, we are borrowers.

Physical bravery is an animal instinct; moral bravery is much higher and truer courage.

Exigencies create the necessary ability to meet and conquer them.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty; power is ever stealing from the many to the few.

Every man meets his Waterloo at last.

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.

Freedom to preach was first gained, dragging in its train freedom to print.