Daniel Webster Quotes & Sayings
Enjoy the top 100 famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Daniel Webster.
Famous Quotes By Daniel Webster
Inconsistencies of opinion, arising from changes of circumstances, are often justifiable. — Daniel Webster
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.
~ — Daniel Webster
If an angel should be winged from Heaven, on an errand of mercy to our country, the first accents that would glow on his lips would be, Beware! Be cautious! You have everything to lose; nothing to gain. We live under the only government that ever existed which was framed by the unrestrained and deliberate consultations of the people. Miracles do not cluster. That which has happened but once in six thousand years cannot be expected to happen often. Such a government, once gone, might leave a void, to be filled, for ages, with revolution and tumult, riot and despotism. — Daniel Webster
God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it. — Daniel Webster
There is something about men more capable of shaking despotic power than lightening, whirlwind, or earthquake, that is, the threatened indignation of the whole civilized world. — Daniel Webster
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! — Daniel Webster
No man can suffer too much, and no man can fall too soon, if he suffer or if he fall in defense of the liberties and Constitution of his country. — Daniel Webster
Good intentions will always be pleaded for any assumption of power. The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good master, but they mean to be master. — Daniel Webster
Those who do not look upon themselves as a link, connecting the past with the future, do not perform their duty to the world. — Daniel Webster
If all my possessions were taken from me with one exception, I would choose to keep the power of communication, for by it I would soon regain all the rest — Daniel Webster
From the accession of Henry the Seventh to the breaking out of the civil wars, England enjoyed much greater exemption from war, foreign and domestic, than for a long period before, and during the controversy between the houses of York and Lancaster. These years of peace were favorable to commerce and the arts. Commerce and the arts augmented general and individual knowledge; and knowledge is the only fountain, both of the love and the principles of human liberty. — Daniel Webster
If the blessings of our political and social condition have not been too highly estimated, we cannot well overrate the responsibility and duty which they impose upon us. We hold these institutions of government, religion, and learning, to be transmitted, as well as enjoyed. We are in the line of conveyance, through which whatever has been obtained by the spirit and efforts of our ancestors is to be communicated to our children. — Daniel Webster
The Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions — Daniel Webster
Now is the time when men work quietly in the fields and women weep softly in the kitchen; the legislature is in session and no man's property is safe. — Daniel Webster
Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold this joyous day. — Daniel Webster
F the Northern states refuse, willfully and deliberately, to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, and Congress provide no remedy, the South would no longer be bound to observe the compact. A bargain can not be broken on one side, and still bind the other side. — Daniel Webster
It would seem, then, to be the part of political wisdom to found government on property; and to establish such distribution of property, by the laws which regulate its transmission and alienation, as to interest the great majority of society in the protection of the government. — Daniel Webster
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. — Daniel Webster
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. — Daniel Webster
What a man does for others, not what they do for him, gives him immortality. — Daniel Webster
The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of religion, of special revelation from God; but it is also a book which teaches man his own individual responsibility, his own dignity, and his equality with his fellow - man. — Daniel Webster
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. — Daniel Webster
I am committed against every thing which in my judgment, may weaken, endanger, or destroy (the Constitution) ... and especially against all extension of Executive power; and I am committed against any attempt to rule the free people of this country by the power and the patronage of the Government itself ... — Daniel Webster
Labor in this country is independent and proud. It has not to ask the patronage of capital, but capital solicits the aid of labor. — Daniel Webster
If the Union was formed by accession of States then the Union may be dissolved by the secession of States. — Daniel Webster
A disordered currency is one of the greatest political evils. — Daniel Webster
The most important thought that ever occupied my mind is that of my individual responsibility to God. — Daniel Webster
It is simple to follow the easy and familiar path of personal ambition and private gain. It is more comfortable to sit content in the easy approval of friends and of neighbours than to risk the friction and the controversy that comes with public affairs. It is easier to fall in step with the slogans of others than to march to the beat of the internal drummer - to make and stand on judgements of your own. And it far easier to accept and to stand on the past, than to fight for the answers of the future — Daniel Webster
If the true spark of religious and civil liberty be kindled, it will burn. — Daniel Webster
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. — Daniel Webster
Let us hold fast the great truth, that communities are responsible, as well as individuals; that no government is respectable which is not just. Without unspotted purity of public faith, without sacred public principle, fidelity, and honor, no machinery of laws, can give dignity to political society. — Daniel Webster
The people's government, made for the people, made by the people and answerable to the people.
January 1830 — Daniel Webster
I was born an American; I will live an American; I shall die an American. — Daniel Webster
It is, Sir, as I have said, a small College, And yet, there are those who love it. — Daniel Webster
We have been taught to regard a representative of the people as a sentinel on the watch-tower of liberty. — Daniel Webster
There is no happiness, there is no liberty, there is no enjoyment of life, unless a man can say, when he rises in the morning, I shall be subject to the decision of no unwise judge today. — Daniel Webster
Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effective than that which deludes them with paper money. — Daniel Webster
Justice is the great interest of man on earth. — Daniel Webster
A solemn and religious regard to spiritual and eternal things is an indispensable element of all true greatness. — Daniel Webster
Corruption of morals is rapid enough in any country without a bounty from government. And ... the Chief Magistrate of the United States should be the last man to accelerate its progress. — Daniel Webster
If all my talents and powers were to be taken from me by some unscrutable Providence, and I had my choice of keeping but one, I would unhesitatingly ask for be allowed to keep the Power of Speaking, for through it I would quickly recover all the rest. — Daniel Webster
We are in danger of being overwhelmed with irredeemable paper, mere paper, representing not gold nor silver; no sir, representing nothing but broken promises, bad faith, bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors and a ruined people. — Daniel Webster
How little do they see what really is, who frame their hasty judgment upon that which seems. — Daniel Webster
The freest government, if it could exist, would not be long acceptable, if the tendency of the laws were to create a rapid accumulation of property in a few hands, and to render the great mass of the population dependent and penniless. — Daniel Webster
Thank God, I also am an American! — Daniel Webster
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. — Daniel Webster
Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from ... the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence. — Daniel Webster
He who tampers with the currency robs labor of its bread. — Daniel Webster
The proper function of a government is to make it easy for the people to do good, and difficult for them to do evil. — Daniel Webster
One country, one constitution, one destiny. — Daniel Webster
We are all agents of the same supreme power, the people — Daniel Webster
The world is governed more by appearance than realities so that it is fully as necessary to seem to know something as to know it. — Daniel Webster
The States are nations. — Daniel Webster
We may be tossed upon an ocean where we can see no land - nor, perhaps, the sun or stars. But there is a chart and a compass for us to study, to consult, and to obey. That chart is the Constitution. — Daniel Webster
Nothing is more deceptive or more dangerous than the pretence of a desire to simplify government. The simplest governments are despotisms; the next simplest, limited monarchies; but all republics, all governments of law, must impose numerous limitations and qualifications of authority, and give many positive and many qualified rights. — Daniel Webster
Power naturally and necessarily follows property. — Daniel Webster
There is no refuge from confession but suicide; and suicide is confession — Daniel Webster
Philosophic 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 — Daniel Webster
Every unpunished murder takes away something from the security of every man's life. — Daniel Webster
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. — Daniel Webster
Our profession is good, if practiced 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 catching. — Daniel Webster
We are bound to maintain public liberty, and, by the example of our own systems, to convince the world that order and law, religion and morality, the rights of conscience, the rights of persons, and the rights of property, may all be preserved and secured, in the most perfect manner, by a government entirely and purely elective. If we fail in this, our disaster will be significant, and will furnish an argument, stronger than has yet been found, in support of those opinions which maintain that government can rest safely on nothing but power and coercion. — Daniel Webster
Employment gives health, sobriety, and morals. — Daniel Webster
Converse, converse, CONVERSE, with living men, face to face, mind to mind-that is one of the best sources of knowledge. — Daniel Webster
Whatever government is not a government of laws, is a despotism, let it be called what it may. — Daniel Webster
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. — Daniel Webster
Human beings will generally exercise power when they can get it, and they will exercise it most undoubtedly in popular governments under pretense of public safety. — Daniel Webster
The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power. — Daniel Webster
A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures. — Daniel Webster
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. — Daniel Webster
In the nature of things, those who have no property and see their neighbors possess much more than they think them to need, cannot be favorable to laws made for the protection of property. When this class becomes numerous, it becomes clamorous. It looks on property as its prey and plunder, and is naturally ready, at times, for violence and revolution. — Daniel Webster
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. — Daniel Webster
Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together. — Daniel Webster
If you divorce capital from labor, capital is hoarded, and labor starves. — Daniel Webster
All creeds are fallible and uncertain evidences of evangelical piety. — Daniel Webster
On the other hand, the cultivation of the religious sentiment represses licentiousnessinspires respect for law and order, and gives strength to the whole social fabric, at the same time that it conducts the human soul upward to the Author of its being. — Daniel Webster
The man is free who is protected from injury. — Daniel Webster
It is my living sentiment, and by the blessing of God it shall be my dying sentiment, independence now and independence forever. — Daniel Webster
I mistrust the judgment of every man in a case in which his own wishes are concerned. — Daniel Webster
The right of an inventor to his invention is no monopoly - in any other sense than a man's house is a monopoly. — Daniel Webster
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 — Daniel Webster
Impress upon children the truth that the exercise of the elective franchise is a social duty of as solemn a nature as man can be called to perform; that a man may not innocently trifle with his vote; that every elector is a trustee as well for others as himself and that every measure he supports has an important bearing on the interests of others as well as on his own. — Daniel Webster
Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens. — Daniel Webster
Who will show me any Constitutional injunction which makes it the duty of the American people to surrender everything valuable in life, and even life, itself, whenever the purposes of an ambitious and mischievous government may require it? ... A free government with an uncontrolled power of military conscription is the most ridiculous and abominable contradiction and nonsense that ever entered into the heads of men. — Daniel Webster
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. — Daniel Webster
If the States were not left to leave the Union when their rights were interfered with, the government would have been National, but the Convention refused to baptize it by that name. — Daniel Webster
Let us thank God that we live in an age when something has influence besides the bayonet. — Daniel Webster
The inherent right in the people to reform their government, I do not deny; and they have another right, and that is to resist unconstitutional laws without overturning the government. — Daniel Webster
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 relations between the creature and his Creator. — Daniel Webster
If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, then error will be. If God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendency. 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 throughout the length and breadth of this land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end. — Daniel Webster
Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable! — Daniel Webster
The dignity of history consists in reciting events with truth and accuracy, and in presenting human agents and their actions in an interesting and instructive form. The first element in history, therefore, is truthfulness; and this truthfulness must be displayed in a concrete form. — Daniel Webster
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. — Daniel Webster
He smote the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of the Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet. The fabled birth of Minerva, from the brain of Jove, was hardly more sudden or more perfect than the financial system of the United States, as it burst forth from the conceptions of Alexander Hamilton. — Daniel Webster
Failure is more frequently from want of energy than want of capital. — Daniel Webster
Every breeze wafts intelligence from country to country, every wave rolls it and gives it forth, and all in turn receive it. There is a vast commerce of ideas, there are marts and exchanges for intellectual discoveries, and a wonderful fellowship of those individual intelligences which make up the minds and opinions of the age. — Daniel Webster