Quotes from Daniel Webster

I shall know but one country. The ends I aim at shall be my country, my God & Truth. I was born an American; I live an American; I shall die an American.

The most important thought that ever occupied my mind is that of my individual responsibility to God.

There is no refuge from confession but suicide; and suicide is confession

If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity.

The proper function of a government is to make it easy for the people to do good, and difficult for them to do evil.

Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.

There is nothing so powerful as truth - and often nothing so strange.

God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it.

There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters

A country cannot subsist well without liberty, nor liberty without virtue.

Let us never forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor of man. When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization.

I regard it (the Constitution) as the work of the purest patriots and wisest statesman that ever existed, aided by the smiles of a benign Providence; it almost appears a "Divine interposition in our behalf... the hand that destroys our Constitution rends our Union asunder forever.

The people's government, made for the people, made by the people and answerable to the people. January 1830

Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades; shoe makers hang out a gigantic shoe; jewelers a monster watch, and the dentist hangs out a gold tooth; but up in the Mountains of New Hampshire, God Almighty has hung out a sign to show that there He makes men.

A disordered currency is one of the greatest political evils.

I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American.

If we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal minds and instill into them just principles, we are then engraving that upon tablets which no time will efface, but will brighten and brighten to all eternity. ~

We are all agents of the same supreme power, the people

Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable!

Nothing will ruin the country if the people themselves will undertake its safety; and nothing can save it if they leave that safety in any hands but their own.

The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions.

There is always room at the top.

Mr. President, I wish to speak today, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American. I speak for the preservation of the Union. Hear me for my cause.

When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of human civilization.