1861

First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln · 1861

★ 9.0

Why should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people? Is there any better or equal hope in the world?

One, if by land, and two, if by sea; And I on the opposite shore will be, Ready to ride and spread the alarm Through every Middlesex village and farm.

First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln · 1861

★ 5.5

Poem · Magazine

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Atlantic Monthly · 1861

★ 5.4

A place for everything and everything in its place.

Isabella Mary Beeton

1861

★ 5.4

Political literature

It is a very great thing to be able to think as you like; but, after all, an important question remains: what you think.

Matthew Arnold

Democracy · 1861

★ 5.3

If by the mere force of numbers a majority should deprive a minority of any clearly written constitutional right, it might, in a moral point of view, justify revolution—certainly would if such a right were a vital one.

First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln · 1861

★ 4.6

Physically speaking, we cannot separate. We cannot remove our respective sections from each other, nor build an impassable wall between them. A husband and wife may be divorced, and go out of the presence and beyond the reach of each other; but the different parts of our country cannot do this. They cannot but remain face to face, and intercourse, either amicable or hostile, must continue between them.

Inebriate of Air - am I - And debauchee of dew - Reeling - thro endless summer days - From inns of Molten Blue.

First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln · 1861

★ 4.6

Poem · Newspaper

Emily Dickinson

1861

★ 4.5

I loved her simply because I found her irresistible.

Great Expectations · 1861

★ 4.0

It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home.

Great Expectations · 1861

★ 4.0

I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.

Great Expectations · 1861

★ 3.9

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.

Great Expectations · 1861

★ 3.9

Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces,—and as it gets older and stronger it will tear deeper,—love her, love her, love her!

Great Expectations · 1861

★ 3.8

This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it.

First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln · 1861

★ 3.8

I hold that, in contemplation of universal law and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual... Continue to execute all the express provisions of our National Constitution, and the Union will endure forever - it being impossible to destroy it except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights.

First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln · 1861

★ 3.8

Political literature

The Conservatives…being by the law of their existence the stupidest party.

Annual Message to Congress · 1861

★ 3.7

Essay · Political literature

John Stuart Mill

Considerations on Representative Government · 1861

★ 3.7

The social state is at once so natural, so necessary, and so habitual to man, that...he never conceives himself otherwise than as a member of a body.

John Stuart Mill

Utiliarianism · 1861

★ 3.7

Travel writing

No permanent elevation of a people can be effected without commerce.

David Livingstone

1861

★ 3.6

Speech

The North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates. But when they begin to move in a given direction... They move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche.

Samuel Houston

1861

★ 3.5

Historical literature

The movement of the progressive societies has hitherto been a movement from Status to Contract.

Henry Maine

1861

★ 2.7

The intention of the lawgiver is the law.

First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln · 1861

★ 2.3

Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule.

Great Expectations · 1861

★ 2.2

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching… I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape.

Great Expectations · 1861

★ 2.2

Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

Great Expectations · 1861

★ 2.2

Novel

George Eliot

Silas Marner · 1861

★ 2.1

Philosophical literature

It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.

John Stuart Mill

1861

★ 2.1

While the people retain their virtue and vigilance, no administration, by any extreme of wickedness or folly, can very seriously injure the government in the short space of four years.

First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln · 1861

★ 2.1

A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism.

First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln · 1861

★ 2.1

If all do not join now to save the good old ship of the Union on this voyage, nobody will have a chance to pilot her on another voyage.