Wendell Phillips, an American abolitionist and social reformer, was a leading advocate for the abolition of slavery and women's rights. His powerful oratory and unwavering commitment to justice made him a prominent figure in the 19th-century reform movements. Phillips' legacy as a champion of human rights continues to be honored.
"What is fanaticism today is the fashionable creed tomorrow, and trite as the multiplication table a week after."
"Governments exist to protect the rights of minorities. The loved and the rich need no protection: they have many friends and few enemies."
"Difference of religion breeds more quarrels than difference of politics."
"To hear some men talk of the government, you would suppose that Congress was the law of gravitation, and kept the planets in their places."
"You can always get the truth from an American statesman after he has turned seventy, or given up all hope of the Presidency."
"Let me make the newspapers, and I care not what is preached in the pulpit or what is enacted in Congress."
"Today it is not big business that we have to fear. It is big government."