20 Quotes by Daniel O'Connell

The principle of my political life ... is that all amelioration and improvements in political institutions can be obtained by persevering in a perfectly peaceable and legal course, and cannot be obtained by forcible means, or if they could be got by forcible means, such means create more evils than they cure, and leave the country worse than they found it.

I will go on quietly and slowly, but I will go on firmly, and with a certainty of success.

The poor old Duke [of Wellington]! What shall I say of him? To be sure he was born in Ireland, but being born in a stable does not make a man a horse.

Every religion is good—every religion is true to him who in his good caution and conscience believes it.

There is an utter ignorance of, and indifference to, our sufferings and privations....What care they for us, provided we be submissive, pay the taxes, furnish recruits for the Army and Navy and bless the masters who either despise or oppress or combine both? The apathy that exists respecting Ireland is worse than the national antipathy they bear us.

Although the Irish language is connected with the many recollections that twine around the hearts of Irishmen, yet the superior utility of the English tongue, as the medium of all modern communication, is so great that I can witness without a sigh the gradual decline of the Irish language.

Gentlemen, you may soon have the alternative to live as slaves or die as free men

Gentlemen, you may soon have the alternative to live as slaves or die as free men.

The altar of liberty totters when it is cemented only with blood.