“Every man meets his Waterloo at last.”

— Wendell Phillips

1850s, Lecture at Brooklyn (1859)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Every man meets his Waterloo at last." by Wendell Phillips?

Wendell Phillips23

American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orato… 1811–1884

Related quotes

“Every man is his own doctor of divinity, in the last resort.”

Robert Louis Stevenson book An Inland Voyage

An Inland Voyage (1878).

“It occurred on the evening before Waterloo,
And troops were lined up on parade,
The Sergeant inspecting 'em he was a terror,
Of whom every man was afraid”

Stanley Holloway (1890–1982) English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist

Sam, Sam, Pick Oop Tha' Musket

“Was it possible that Napoleon should win the battle of Waterloo? We answer, No! Why? Because of Wellington? Because of Blücher? No! Because of God! For Bonaparte to conquer at Waterloo was not the law of the nineteenth century. It was time that this vast man should fall. He had been impeached before the Infinite! He had vexed God! Waterloo was not a battle. It was the change of front of the Universe!”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

"The Battle of Waterloo", reported in Oliver Ernesto Branch, ed., The Hamilton Speaker (1878), p. 53

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Therefore, no American can afford to be apathetic about the problem of racial justice. It is a problem that meets every man at his front door.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, The Rising Tide of Racial Consciousnes (1960)

“Let every man in mankind's frailty
Consider his last day; and let none
Presume on his good fortune until he find
Life, at his death, a memory without pain.”

Sophocles (-496–-406 BC) ancient Greek tragedian

Variant: Look upon him, O my Thebans, on your king, the child of fame! This mighty man, this Œdipus the lore far-famed could guess, And envy from each Theban won, so great his lordliness— Lo to what a surge of sorrow and confusion hath he come! Let us call no mortal happy till our eyes have seen the doom And the death-day come upon him—till, unharassed by mischance, He pass the bound of mortal life, the goal of ordinance. [ Tr. E. D. A. Morshead http://books.google.com/books?id=i7wXAAAAYAAJ (1885)] Variant: People of Thebes, my countrymen, look on Oedipus. He solved the famous riddle, with his brilliance, he rose to power, a man beyond all power. Who could behold his greatness without envy? Now what a black sea of terror has overwhelmed him. Now as we keep our watch and wait the final day, count no man happy till he dies, free of pain at last. [quoted by Thomas Cahill in Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea] Source: Oedipus Rex, Line 1529, Choragos.