Skip to content

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.

— Rufus Choate

Another quote →

Topics

Religion

More quotes by Rufus Choate

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)

All Rufus Choate quotes →

You may also like

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

Albert Einstein Moral Decay (1937)

Science and religion are two human enterprises sharing many features.

Freeman Dyson Infinite in All Directions (1988)

The moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.

John Adams A Defence of the Constitutions of Government (1787)

The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

Thomas Babington Macaulay History of England (1849)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Rufus Choate (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.