149 Quotes by Wendell Phillips

The hand entrusted with power becomes, either from human depravity or esprit de corps, the necessary enemy of the people

Hearts are stronger than swords.

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.

Government began in tyranny and force, began in the feudalism of the soldier and bigotry of the priest; and the ideas of justice and humanity have been fighting their way, like a thunderstorm, against the organized selfishness of human nature.

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

Neither do I acknowledge the right of Plymouth to the whole rock. No, the rock underlies all America: it only crops out here.

Political convulsions, like geological upheavings usher in new epochs of the world's progress.

The Puritan did not stop to think; he recognized God in his soul, and acted.

The slowest of us cannot but admit that the world moves.