Liberty exists in proportion to wholesome restraint.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Liberty
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
If we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work on brass, time will efface it. If we rear temples, they will crumble to dust. But if we work on mens immortal minds, if we impress on them high principles, the just fear of God, and love for their fellow-men, we engrave on those tablets something which no time can efface, and which will brighten and brighten to all eternity.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Education, Mind
He who tampers with the currency robs labor of its bread.
—Daniel Webster
There is no evil we cannot face or fly from, but the consciousness of duty disregarded.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Duty
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.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Bible
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.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Eloquence
God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it. Let our object be 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
Topics: America
Employment gives health, sobriety, and morals.—Constant employment and well-paid labor produce, in a country like ours, general prosperity, content, and cheerfulness.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Employment, Work
When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of human civilization.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Farming, Civilization
Liberty consists in wholesome restraint.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Liberty
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.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Death
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.
—Daniel Webster
The Senator says the territory of California is three times greater than the average extent of the new States of the Union. Well, Sir, suppose it is. We all know that it has more than three times as many mountains, inaccessible and rocky hills, and sandy wastes, as are possessed by any State of the Union. But how much is there of useful land? how much that may be made to contribute to the support of man and of society? These ought to be the questions. Well, with respect to that, I am sure that everybody has become satisfied that, although California may have a very great sea-board, and a large city or two, yet that the agricultural products of the whole surface now are not, and never will be, equal to one half part of those of the State of Illinois; no, nor yet a fourth, or perhaps a tenth part.
—Daniel Webster
Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Cities
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.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Preaching
I see nothing in it new and valuable. What is valuable is not new, and what is new is not valuable.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Originality, Innovation
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.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Education
Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Patriotism, Unity
Credit is the vital air of the system of modern commerce. It has done more, a thousand times, to enrich nations, than all the mines of all the world. It has excited labor, stimulated manufactures, pushed commerce over every sea, and brought every nation, every kingdom, and every small tribe, among the races of men, to be known to all the rest. It has raised armies, equipped navies, and, triumphing over the gross power of mere numbers, it has established national superiority on the foundation of intelligence, wealth, and well-directed industry. Credit is to money what money is to articles of merchandise. As hard money represents property, so credit represents hard money; and it is capable of supplying the place of money so completely, that there are writers of distinction, especially of the Scotch school, who insist that no hard money is necessary for the interests of commerce. I am not of that opinion. I do not think any government can maintain an exclusive paper system, without running to excess, and thereby causing depreciation.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Money
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.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Eloquence
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.
—Daniel Webster
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.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Faith, The Bible, Bible
Gentlemen, the character of Washington is among the most cherished contemplations of my life. It is a fixed star in the firmament of great names, shining without twinkling or obscuration, with clear, steady, beneficent light.
—Daniel Webster
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.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Wife
Keep cool; anger is not an argument.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Anger
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.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Politics
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.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Reality, Appearance, Intelligence
The farmers are the founders of civilization and prosperity.
—Daniel Webster
There is no refuge from confession but suicide; and suicide is confession.
—Daniel Webster
Topics: Honesty
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Edward Everett American Politician
- John Quincy Adams American Head of State
- Henry Clay American Politician
- Maria Mitchell American Astronomer
- George Bancroft American Historian
- James Madison American Statesman, President
- Horace Mann American Educator
- John F. Kennedy American Head of State
- Bainbridge Colby American Politician
- Billie Holiday American Jazz Singer
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