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“stand by principle at all hazards.”
Washington distinguishes tactical cooperation from questions of right and wrong, where he advises maintaining principle despite possible cost.
Source note: The Future of the American Negro, Chapter VIII; Project Gutenberg #26507. This short excerpt appears in Washington’s closing policy discussion, where he distinguishes ordinary political cooperation from cases involving a question of right or wrong and advises standing by principle in those cases.
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“Let us have faith that right makes might.”
Lincoln reverses the idea that power establishes right, arguing that moral judgment should guide sustained political action rather than treating strength or intimidation as proof of justice.
Source note: Cooper Union Address, February 27, 1860, closing passage. Lincoln is defending Republican opposition to the extension of slavery into federal territories; the line retains that antislavery political context.
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“If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.”
Lincoln warns that republican institutions can be destroyed from within through citizens’ own choices and conduct, making preservation a responsibility rather than assuming external enemies are the only danger.
Source note: Lyceum Address, January 27, 1838. Lincoln is discussing mob violence, disregard for law and the preservation of republican institutions; the sentence is not a generic prediction about national collapse.
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“It does not pay an individual to do anything except what his conscience will approve of every day, and every hour and minute in the day.”
Washington makes conscience a recurring test of conduct, asking whether ordinary choices can withstand one’s own moral approval rather than merely outside scrutiny.
Source note: Character Building, “What Will Pay?”, Project Gutenberg #60484. Washington reports a discussion of honesty in business and uses conscience as a practical test of conduct; the sentence belongs to that address’s argument that dishonest dealing does not pay.
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“Women, I allow, may have different duties to fulfil; but they are human duties, and the principles that should regulate the discharge of them, I sturdily maintain, must be the same.”
Different roles do not require different moral standards; Wollstonecraft argues for common principles of responsibility and virtue.
Source note: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; the passage rejects a separate moral standard built around sex rather than shared human duties.
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“Character is power.”
The compressed maxim treats durable conduct and reliability as forms of influence that do not depend entirely on position or display.
Source note: Architects of Fate; Project Gutenberg #21622. The short maxim appears in Marden’s discussion of character.