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WEBSTER, Daniel Quotes
(1782-1852), American orator and statesman
The farmers are the founders of civilization and prosperity.
The home of freedom, and the hope of the down-trodden and oppressed among the nations of the earth.
America has proved that it is practicable to elevate the mass of mankind—the laboring or lower class—to raise them to self-respect, to make them competent to act a part in the great right and the great duty of self-government; and she has proved that this may be done by education and the diffusion of knowledge. She holds out an example a thousand times more encouraging than ever was presented before to those nine-tenths of the human race who are born without hereditary fortune or hereditary rank.
It is a noble faculty of our nature which enables us to connect our thoughts, sympathies, and happiness, with what is distant in place or time; and looking before and after, to hold communion at once with our ancestors and our posterity. There is a moral and philosophical respect for our ancestors, which elevates the character and improves the heart. Next to the sense of religious duty and moral feeling, I hardly know what should bear with stronger obligation on a liberal and enlightened mind, than a consciousness of an alliance with excellence which is departed; and a consciousness, too, that in its acts and conduct, and even in its sentiments and thoughts, it may be actively operating on the happiness of those that come after it.
The world is governed more by appearances than by realities, so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it.
I believe that the Bible is to be understood and received in the plain and obvious meaning of its passages; for I cannot persuade myself that a book intended for the instruction and conversion of the whole world should cover its true meaning in any such mystery and doubt that none but critics and philosophers can discover it.
Philosophical argument, especially that drawn from the vastness of the universe, in comparison with the apparent insignificance of this globe, has sometimes shaken my reason for the faith that is in me; but my heart has always assured and reassured me that the gospel of Jesus Christ must be a divine reality.
I have read the Bible through many times, and now make it a practice to read it through once every year.—It is a book of all others for lawyers, as well as divines; and I pity the man who cannot find in it a rich supply of thought and of rules for conduct.
If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, and the people do not become religious, I do not know what is to become of us as a nation. And the thought is one to cause solemn reflection on the part of every patriot and Christian. If truth be not diffused, error will be; if God and his word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the aseendancy; if the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will; if the power of the gospel is not felt through the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness, will reign without mitigation or end.
Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens.
All that is best in the civilization of today, is the fruit of Christ's appearance among men.
A conscience void of offence, before God and man, is an inheritance for eternity.
Let our object be our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country.
Though I do not like creeds in religious matters, I verily believe that creeds had something to do with our Revolution.—In their religious controversies the people of New England had always been accustomed to stand on points; and when Lord North undertook to tax them, then they stood on points also.—It so happened, fortunately, that their opposition to Lord North was a point on which they were all united.
One may live as a conqueror, a king, or a magistrate; but he must die a man. The bed of death brings every human being to his pure individuality, to the intense contemplation of that deepest and most solemn of all relations—the relation between the creature and his Creator.
There is something among men more capable of shaking despotic power than lightning, whirlwind, or earthquake; that is the threatened indignation of the whole civilized world.
There is no evil we cannot face or fly from, but the consciousness of duty disregarded.
If we work upon marble, it will perish; if on brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal minds, and imbue them with principles, with the just fear of God and love of our fellowmen, we engrave on those tablets something that will brighten to all eternity.
Knowledge does not comprise all which is contained in the large term of education. The feelings are to be disciplined; the passions are to be restrained; true and worthy motives are to be inspired; a profound religious feeling is to be instilled, and pure morality inculcated under all circumstances. All this is comprised in education.
The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the whole man onward, right onward to his object,—this, this is eloquence; or rather it is something greater and higher than all eloquence; it is action, noble, sublime, godlike action.
If any thing I have ever said or written deserves the feeblest encomiums of my fellow countrymen, I have no hesitation in declaring that for their partiality I am indebted, solely indebted, to the daily and attentive perusal of the Sacred Scriptures, the source of all true poetry and eloquence, as well as of all good and all comfort.
True eloquence does not consist in speech.—It cannot be brought from far.—Labor and learning may toil for it in vain.—Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they cannot compass it.—It must consist in the man, in the subject, and in the occasion.
Employment gives health, sobriety, and morals.—Constant employment and well-paid labor produce, in a country like ours, general prosperity, content, and cheerfulness.
Falsehoods not only disagree with truths, but usually quarrel among themselves.
Suppose your candidate for fame pursues unremittingly the object of his love, through every difficulty and over every obstacle, till at last he overtakes her ladyship, and is permitted to kiss the hem of her garment on mount immortality, what will the dear-bought damsel boot him? If he take her to his bosom, she has no flesh and blood to warm it. If he taste of her lip, there is no more nectar in it than there are sunbeams in a cucumber.—Every rascal who has been bold and fearless enough, Nimrod, Cataline, and Tom Paine, all have had a smack at her before him: They have all more or less become famous, and will be remembered much longer than better men.
Real goodness does not attach itself merely to this life—it points to another world. Political or professional reputation cannot last forever, but a conscience void of offence before God and man is an inheritance for eternity.
My heart has always assured and reassured me that the gospel of Christ must be a Divine reality.—The sermon on the mount cannot be merely a human production.—This belief enters into the very depth of my conscience.—The whole history of man proves it.
It is to self-government, the great principle of popular representation and administration, the system that lets in all to participate in its counsels, that we owe what we are, and what we hope to be.
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.
No government is respectable which is not just.—Without unspotted purity of public faith, without sacred public principle, fidelity, and honor, no mere forms of government, no machinery of laws, can give dignity to political society.
A solemn and religious regard to spiritual and eternal things is an indispensable element of all true greatness.
Mind is the great lever of all things; human thought is the process by which human ends are answered.
The law is made to protect the innocent by punishing the guilty.
The criminal law is not founded on the principle of vengeance; it uses evil only as the means of preventing greater evil.
Whenever a jury, through whimsical or ill-founded scruples, suffer the guilty to escape, they become responsible for the augmented danger of the innocent.
Justice is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together. Wherever her temple stands, and so long as it is duly honored, there is a foundation for social security, general happiness, and the improvement and progress of our race. And whoever labors on this edifice with usefulness and distinction, whoever clears its foundations, strengthens its pillars, adorns its entablatures, or contributes to raise its august dome still higher in the skies, connects himself, in name, and fame, and character, with that which is and must be as durable as the frame of human society.
It is the glorious prerogative of the empire of knowledge, that what it gains it never loses. On the contrary, it increases by the multiple of its own power; all its ends become means; all its attainments help to new conquests.
Knowledge has, in our time, triumphed, and is triumphing, over prejudice and over bigotry. The civilized and Christian world is fast learning the great lesson, that difference of nation does not imply necessary hostility, and that all contact need not be war. The whole world is becoming a common field for intellect to act in. Energy of mind, genius, power, wheresoever it exists may speak out in any tongue, and the world will hear it.
Labor is one of the great elements of society—the great substantial interest on which we all stand. Not feudal service, or predial toil, or the irksome drudgery by one race of mankind subjected, on account of their color, to another; but labor, intelligent, manly, independent, thinking and acting for itself, earning its own wages, accumulating those wages into capital, educating childhood, maintaining worship, claiming the right of the elective franchise, and helping to uphold the great fabric of the State—that is American labor; and all my sympathies are with it, and my voice, till I am dumb, will be for it.
Labor is the great producer of wealth; it moves all other causes.
If you divorce capital from labor, capital is hoarded, and labor starves.
Accuracy and diligence are much more necessary to a lawyer than great comprehension of mind, or brilliancy of talent.—His business is to refine, define, split hairs, look into authorities, and compare cases.—A man can never gallop over the fields of law on Pegasus, nor fly across them on the wing of oratory.—If he would stand on terra firma, he must descend.—If he would be a great lawyer, he must first consent to become a great drudge.
Lawyers on opposite sides of a case are like the two parts of shears; they cut what comes between them, but not each other.
Our profession is good if practised in the spirit of it; it is damnable fraud and iniquity when its true spirit is supplied by a spirit of mischief-making and money-getting.—The love of fame is extinguished; every ardent wish for knowledge repressed; conscience put in jeopardy, and the best feelings of the heart indurated by the mean, money-catching, abominable practises, which cover with disgrace some of the modem practitioners of law.
The love of religious liberty is a stronger sentiment, when fully excited, than an attachment to civil freedom. Conscience, in the cause of religion, prepares the mind to act and to suffer, beyond almost all other causes. It sometimes gives an impulse so irresistible, that no fetters of power or of opinion can withstand it. History instructs us, that this love of religious liberty, made up of the clearest sense of right and the highest conviction of duty, is able to look the sternest despotism in the face, and, with means apparently inadequate, to shake principalities and powers.
Liberty and union, one and inseparable, now and forever.
If the true spark of religious and civil liberty be kindled, it will burn. Human agency cannot extinguish it. Like the earth's central fire, it may be smothered for a time; the ocean may overwhelm it; mountains may press it down; but its inherent and unconquerable force will heave both the ocean and the land, and at some time or another, in some place or another, the volcano will break out and flame to heaven.
Falsehoods not only disagree with truths, but they usually quarrel among themselves.
If we work 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.
The morning itself, few inhabitants of cities know anything about. Among all our good people, not one in a thousand sees the sun rise once in a year. They know nothing of the morning. Their idea of it is that it is that part of the day which comes along after a cup of coffee and a piece of toast. With them, morning is not a new issuing of light, a new bursting forth of the sun, a new waking-up of all that has life from a sort of temporary death, to behold again the works of God, the heavens and the earth; it is only a part of the domestic day, belonging to reading newspapers, answering notes, sending the children to school, and giving orders for dinner. The first streak of light, the earliest purpling of the east, which the lark springs up to greet, and the deeper and deeper coloring into orange and red, till at length the "glorious sun is seen, regent of the day"—this they never enjoy, for they never see it. I never thought that Adam had much the advantage of us from having seen the world while it was new. The manifestations of the power of God, like his mercies, are "new every morning" and fresh every moment. We see as fine risings of the sun as ever Adam saw; and its risings are as much a miracle now as they were in his day—and, I think, a good deal more, because it is now a part of the miracle, that for thousands and thousands of years he has come to his appointed time, without the variation of a millionth part of a second. I know the morning—I am acquainted with it, and I love it. I love it fresh and sweet as it is—a daily new creation, breaking forth and calling all that have life and breath and being to a new adoration, new enjoyments, and new gratitude.
Every unpunished murder takes away something from the security of every man's life.
There is something among men more capable of shaking despotic power than lightning, whirlwind, or earthquake; that is, the threatened indignation of the whole civilized world.
We are tod much inclined to under-rate the power of moral influence, the influence of public opmion, and the influence of the principles to which great men—the lights of the world and of the present age—have given their sanction.
Let our object be our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country. And, by the blessing of God, may that country itself become a vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom, of peace, and of liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration forever.
Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable.
For my part, though I like the investigation of particular questions, I give up what is called "the science of political economy."—There is no such science.—There are no rules on these subjects, so fixed and invariable, that their aggregate constitutes a science.—I have recently run over twenty volumes, from Adam Smith to Professor Dew, and from the whole if I were to pick out with one hand all the mere truisms, and with the other all the doubtful propositions, little would be left.
Though we live in a reading age and in a reading community, yet the preaching of the Gospel is the form in which human agency has been and still is most efficaciously employed for the spiritual improvement of men.
There is a boldness, a spirit of daring, in religious reformers, not to be measured by the general rules which control men's purposes and actions.
Political and professional fame cannot last forever, but a conscience void of offence before God and man is an inheritance for eternity. Religion, therefore, is a necessary, an indispensable element in any great human character. There is no living without it. Religion is the tie that connects man with his Creator, and holds him to his throne. If that tie is sundered or broken, he floats away a worthless atom in the universe, its proper attractions all gone, its destiny thwarted, and its whole future nothing but darkness, desolation and death. A man with no sense of religious duty is he whom the Scriptures describes in so terse but terrific a manner, as “living without hope and without God in the world.” Such a man is out of his proper being, out of the circle of all his duties, out of the circle of all his happiness, and away, far, far away from the purposes of his creation.
If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, and the people do not become religious, I do not know what is to become of us as a nation.
The most important thought I ever had was that of my individual responsibility to God.
The longer I live the more highly do I estimate the Christian Sabbath, and the more grateful do I feel to those who impress its importance on the community.
From my earliest youth I have regarded slavery as a great moral and political evil.—I think it unjust, repugnant to the natural, equality of mankind, founded only in superior power; a standing and permanent conquest by the stronger over the weaker.—All pretence of defending it on the ground of different races, I have ever condemned, and have even said that if the black race is weaker, that is a reason against and not for its subjection and oppression.—In a religious point of view, I have ever regarded and spoken of it, not as subject to any express denunciation, either in the Old Testament or the New, but as opposed to the whole spirit of the gospel, and to the teachings of Jesus Christ.—The religion of Christ is a religion of kindness, justice, and brotherly love:—but slavery is not kindly affectionate; it does not seek another's and not its own; it does not let the oppressed go free; it is but a continual act of oppression.
He that has "a spirit of detail" will do better in life than many who figured beyond him in the university.—Such an one is minute and particular.—He adjusts trifles; and these trifles compose most of the business and happiness of life.—Great events happen seldom, and affect few; trifles happen every moment to everybody; and though one occurrence of them adds little to the happiness or misery of life, yet the sum total of their continual repetition is of the highest consequence.
Truth is always congruous and agrees with itself; every truth in the universe agrees with all others.
There is nothing upon this earth that can be compared with the faithful attachment of a wife; no creature who, for the object of her love, is so indomitable, so persevering, so ready to suffer and die. Under the most depressing circumstances, woman's weaknesses become a mighty power; her timidity becomes fearless courage; all her shrinking and sinking passes away; and her spirit acquires the firmness of marble—adamantine firmness—when circumstances drive her to put forth all her energy and the inspiration of her affections.
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