Rufus Choate Quotes
d. 1859 United States
Rufus Choate (October 1, 1799 – July 13, 1859) was an American lawyer, Whig politician, and orator.
- United States
- Lawyers
- Politicians
Also known as: Choate, Rufus
Random Rufus Choate quote
13 quotes
The final end of government is not to exert restraint but to do good.
We have built no national temples but the Capitol; we consult no common oracle but the Constitution.
We join ourselves to no party that does not carry the flag, and keep step to the music of the Union.
Its constitution the glittering and sounding generalities of natural right which make up the Declaration of Independence.
Letter to the Maine Whig Committee (1856)
Neither irony nor sarcasm is argument.
Dictionary of American Maxims (1955)
Happy is he who has laid up in his youth, and held fast in all fortune, a genuine and passionate love of reading.
You don't want a diction gathered from the newspapers, caught from the air, common and unsuggestive; but you want one whose every word is full-freighted with suggestion and association, with beauty and power.
The courage of New England was the "courage of conscience." It did not rise to that insane and awful passion, the love of war for itself.
Address at Ipswich Centennial (1834)
There was a State without kings or nobles; there was a church without a bishop; there was a people governed by grave magistrates which it had elected, and equal laws which it had framed.
There was a state without king or nobles; there was a church without a bishop; there was a people governed by grave magistrates which it had selected, and by equal laws which it had framed.
A book is the only immortality.
It is a great mistake to think any thing too profound or rich for a popular audience. No train of thought is too deep, or subtle, or grand — but the manner of presenting it to their untutored minds should be peculiar. It should be presented in anecdote, or sparkling truism, or telling illustration, or stinging epithet; always in some concrete form, never in a logical, abstract, syllogistic shape.
All that happens in the world of Nature or Man, — every war; every peace; every hour of prosperity; every hour of adversity; every election; every death ; every life; every success and every failure, — all change, — all permanence, — the perished leaf; the unutterable glory of stars, — all things speak truth to the thoughtful spirit.