C.N. Douglas, comp. Forty Thousand Quotations: Prose and Poetical. 1917.
Charles Sumner
A nation cannot afford to do a mean thing.
Give me the centralism of liberty; give me the imperialism of equal rights.
Let the bugles sound the truce of God to the whole world forever.
Moral excellence is the bright consummate flower of all progress.
No true and permanent Fame can be founded except in labors which promote the happiness of mankind.
The age of chivalry has gone; the age of humanity has come.
The highest greatness, surviving time and stone, is that which proceeds from the soul of man. Monarchs and cabinets, generals and admirals, with the pomp of court and the circumstance of war, in the lapse of time disappear from sight; but the pioneers of truth, though poor and lowly, especially those whose example elevates human nature, and teaches the rights of man, so that “a government of the people, by the people, for the people, may not perish from the earth;” such a harbinger can never be forgotten, and their renown spreads co-extensive with the cause they served so well.
The press, watchful with more than the hundred eyes of Argus, strong with more than the hundred arms of Briareus, not only guards all the conquests of civilization, but leads the way to future triumphs.
The slave power dares anything, and it can be conquered only by the united masses of the people. From Congress to the people, I appeal.
The true grandeur of humanity is in moral elevation, sustained, enlightened, and decorated by the intellect of man.
The true greatness of nations is in those qualities which constitute the greatness of the individual.
There are two sorts of pity: one is a balm and the other a poison; the first is realized by our friends, the last by our enemies.
Where slavery is there liberty cannot be, and where liberty is there slavery cannot be.
Without knowledge there can be no sure progress. Vice and barbarism are the inseparable companions of ignorance. Nor is it too much to say that, except in rare instances, the highest virtue is attained only through intelligence.