"Take the whole range of imaginative literature, and we are all wholesale borrowers. In every matter that relates to invention, to use, or beauty or form, we are borrowers."

Wendell Phillips Law See all quotes by Wendell Phillips →

React to this quote

More by Wendell Phillips

“Revolutions never go backward.”

“Aristocracy is always cruel.”

“aces love to be judged in two ways—by the great men they produce, and by the average merit of the mass of the race.”

“The agitator must stand outside of organizations, with no bread to earn, no candidate to elect, no party to save, no object but truth — to tear a question open and riddle it with light.”

“What the Puritans gave the world was not thought, but action.”

“The best use of laws is to teach men to trample bad laws under their feet.”

Resonant Thoughts

"Every gentleman here is born a petty tyrant. Practised in acts of despotism and cruelty, we become callous to the dictates of humanity and all the finer feelings of the soul. Taught to regard a part o…"

— George Mason

Politics1725–1792

#justice

"It is Germany, guilty of the greatest crime in the history of Europe, a crime premeditated, prepared, and carried out in broad daylight, who presents herself vanquished at the tribunal of Europe and t…"

— Georges Clemenceau

Politics1841–1929

#time

"Was he a sinner? Possibly. But could his class, the bourgeoisie, be condemned as a whole? The Church did not realize how secure he felt when it spoke to him of damnation. Would God send a whole class …"

— Bernard Groethuysen

Philosophy1880–1946

#religion

"The word "Sanskrit" means "prepared, pure, refined or perfect". It was not for nothing that it was called the "devavani" . It has an outstanding place in our culture and indeed was recognized as a lan…"

— Markandey Katju

Law1946

#writing