Charles Sumner Quotes

#1. 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.

Charles Sumner

#2. 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.

Charles Sumner

#3. It's Christmas at Ground Zero The button has been pressed The radio Just let us know That this is not a test Everywhere the atom bombs are droppin It's the end of all humanity No more time for last minute shoppin' It's time to face your final destiny.

Charles Sumner

#4. A nation cannot afford to do a mean thing.

Charles Sumner

#5. Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace.

Charles Sumner

#6. From the beginning of our history the country has been afflicted with compromise. It is by compromise that human rights have been abandoned.

Charles Sumner

#7. Moral excellence is the bright consummate flower of all progress.

Charles Sumner

#8. I have never known a man who was sensual in his youth, who was high-minded when old.

Charles Sumner

#9. War is a positive, precise and specific evil, of gigantic proportions ... making within the sphere of its influence all true grandeur impossible.

Charles Sumner

#10. Can there be in our age any peace that is not honorable, any war that is not dishonorable?

Charles Sumner

#11. Nothing from man's hands, nor law, nor constitution, can be final. Truth alone is final.

Charles Sumner

#12. The phrase public office is a public trust, has of last become common property.

Charles Sumner

#13. Give me the centralism of liberty; give me the imperialism of equal rights.

Charles Sumner

#14. Three things at least they [good politicians] must require; the first is back-bone; the second is back-bone; and the third is back-bone.

Charles Sumner

#15. The age of chivalry has gone; the age of humanity has come.

Charles Sumner

#16. The true greatness of nations is in those qualities which constitute the greatness of the individual.

Charles Sumner

#17. Whether the Union stands or falls, I believe the profession of arms will henceforth be more desirable and more respected than it has been hitherto.

Charles Sumner

#18. The true grandeur of humanity is in moral elevation, sustained, enlightened and decorated by the intellect of man.

Charles Sumner

#19. No true and permanent fame can be founded except in labors which promote the happiness of mankind.

Charles Sumner

#20. War crushes with bloody heel all justice, all happiness, all that is Godlike in man. In our age there can be no peace that is not honorable; there can be no war that is not dishonorable.

Charles Sumner

#21. 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.

Charles Sumner

#22. If a man has done evil in his life, he must not be complimented in marble.

Charles Sumner