Daniel Webster Quotes (97 Quotes)

Let it be borne on the flag under which we rally in every exigency, that we have one country, one constitution, one destiny.

Whatever government is not a government of laws, is a despotism, let it be called what it may.

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

Religion is a necessary, an indispensable element in any great human character. There is no living without it. Religion is the tie that connects man to his Creator, and holds him to his throne.

Although no sculptured marble should rise to their memory, nor engraved stone bear record of their deeds, yet will their remembrance be as lasting as the land they honored.

He had the occasions. But it was in him. He has this extraordinary memory and words came good to him when he was on his feet. These are gifts.

A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed or duty violated is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us.

A mass of men equals a mass of opinions.

What can we do with the western coast, a coast of 3,000 miles, rockbound cheerless, uninviting, and not a harbor on it What use have we for such a country I will never vote one cent from the public treasury to place the Pacific Ocean one inch neare

Where is it written in the Constitution that you may take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly or wickedness of government may engage it.

Men hang out their signs indicative of their respective trades shoemakers 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

Truth is always congruous and agrees with itself every truth in the universe agrees with all others.

May the sun in his course visit no land more free, more happy, more lovely, than this our own country

Man is a special being, and if left to himself, in an isolated condition, would be one of the weakest creatures; but associated with his kind, he works wonders.

Converse, converse, CONVERSE, with living men, face to face, mind to mindthat is one of the best sources of knowledge.

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.

A disordered currency is one of the greatest political evils.

What a man does for others, not what they do for him, gives him immortality.

We wish that this column, rising towards heaven among the pointed spires of so many temples dedicated to God, may contribute also to produce in all minds a pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. We wish, finally, that the last object to the sight of him who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden his who revisits it, may be something which shall remind him of the liberty and the glory of his country. Let it rise let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and the parting day linger and play on its summit.

Inconsistencies of opinion, arising from changes of circumstances, are often justifiable.

Philosophical argument has sometimes shaken my reason for the faith that was in me but my heart has always assured me that the Gospel of Jesus Christ must be reality.

Labour in this country is independent and proud. It has not to ask the patronage of capital, but capital solicits the aid of labor.

On this question of principle, while actual suffering was yet afar off, they the Colonies raised their flag against a power to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and subjugation, Rome in the height of her glory is not to be compared,a power which has dotted over the surface of the whole globe with her possessions and military posts, whose morning drum-beat, following the sun, and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England.

The law: it has honored us; may we honor it.

The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.

Keep cool; anger is not an argument.

Falsehoods not only disagree with truths, but usually quarrel among themselves.

The materials of wealth are in the earth, in the seas, and in their natural and unaided productions.

This is a Senate of equals, of men of individual honor and personal character, and of absolute independence. We know no masters, we acknowledge no dictators. This is a hall for mutual consultation and discussion not an arena for the exhibition of champions.

The past is at least secure.

Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint.

I thank God, that if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit which would drag angels down.

I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts she needs none. There she is. Behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston and Concord and Lexington and Bunker Hill and there they will remain forever.

Hold on to the Constitution and the republic for which it stands, What has happened once in 6,000 years may never again.

Every unpunished murder takes away something from the security of every man's life.

I apprehend no danger to our country from a foreign foe... Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence, I must confess that I do apprehend some danger.

Let us not forget that the cultivation of the earth is the most important labor of man. When tillage begins, other arts will follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of civilization.

Those who do not look upon themselves as a link connecting the past with the future do not perform their duty to the world.

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

No man not inspired can make a good speech without preparation.

Lawyers on opposite sides of a case are like the two parts of shears they cut what comes between them, but not each other.

Knowledge is the only fountain both of the love and the principles of human liberty.

Thank God I I also am an American.

They are usually denominated labor-saving machines, but it would be more just to call them labor-doing machines

Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together.

On the diffusion of education among the people rest the preservation and perpetuation of our free institutions.

An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, the power to destroy.

The gentleman has not seen how to reply to this, otherwise than by supposing me to have advanced the doctrine that a national debt is a national blessing.

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

America has furnished to the world the character of Washington. And if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind.