Top quotes by Edmund Burke

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Votes: 31

Our patience will achieve more than our force. Votes: 29

When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people. Votes: 26

Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations - wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco. Votes: 21

There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity - the law of nature and of nations. Votes: 21

He that struggles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. Votes: 20

Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all. Votes: 20

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. Votes: 20

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. Votes: 19

Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society. Votes: 19

A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors. Votes: 19

The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity. Votes: 19

We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature. Votes: 17

In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature. Votes: 17

He had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame; a passion which is the instinct of all great souls. Votes: 15

People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous. Votes: 11

Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants. Votes: 11

Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government. Votes: 10

Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own. Votes: 10

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. Votes: 10

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do. Votes: 10

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business. Votes: 9

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse. Votes: 8

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing. Votes: 6

If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue. Votes: 5

I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people. Votes: 5

Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation. Votes: 5

The march of the human mind is slow. Votes: 4

All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice. Votes: 4

To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men. Votes: 3

To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely. Votes: 0

The traveller has reached the end of the journey! Votes: 0

Good order is the foundation of all things. Votes: 0

Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls. Votes: 0

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. Votes: 0

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. Votes: 0

The person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon him; he indulges it, he loves it; but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time. Votes: 0

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones. Votes: 0

You can never plan the future by the past. Votes: 0

A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood. Votes: 0

Society is indeed a contract it becomes a participant not only between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. Votes: 0

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.[Preface to Brissot's Address to His Constituents (1794)] Votes: 0

I cannot help concurring with the opinion that an absolute democracy, no more than absolute monarchy, is to be reckoned among the legitimate forms of government. Votes: 0

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings. Votes: 0

Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives preaching of a new gospel. Votes: 0

But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Votes: 0

Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement. Votes: 0

The love of lucre, though sometimes carried to a ridiculous excess, a vicious excess, is the grand cause of prosperity to all States. Votes: 0

To drive men from independence to live on alms, is itself great cruelty. Votes: 0

Ambition can creep as well as soar. Votes: 0

Adversity is a severe instructor, set over us by one who knows us better than we do ourselves, as he loves us better too. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. This conflict with difficulty makes us acquainted with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial. Votes: 0

It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare. Votes: 0

Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind. Votes: 0

People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors. Votes: 0

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. Votes: 0

All government is founded on compromise and banter. Votes: 0

He only deserves to be remembered by posterity who treasures up and preserves the history of his ancestors. Votes: 0

The nerve that never relaxes, the eye that never blanches, the thought that never wanders, the purpose that never wavers - these are the masters of victory. Votes: 0

There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination. Votes: 0

Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation.You choose a Member indeed; but when you have chosen him, heisnotthe Member for Bristol, but heisa Member of Parliament. Votes: 0

Old religious factions are volcanoes burned out; on the lava and ashes and squalid scoriae of old eruptions grow the peaceful olive, the cheering vine and the sustaining corn. Votes: 0

Old religious factions are volcanoes burnt out. Votes: 0

It is in the relaxation of security; it is in the expansion of prosperity; it is in the hour of dilatation of the heart, and of its softening into festivity and pleasure, that the real character of men is discerned. Votes: 0

I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. Votes: 0

Circumspection and caution are part of wisdom. Votes: 0

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites. Votes: 0

It may be observed, that very polished languages, and such as are praised for their superior clearness and perspicuity, are generally deficient in strength. Votes: 0

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion. Votes: 0

The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations. Votes: 0

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist. Votes: 0

The credulity of dupes is as inexhaustible as the invention of knaves. Votes: 0

People crushed by law, have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much hope and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous. Votes: 0

Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair. Votes: 0

I do ride contend against the advantages of distrust. In the world we live in, it is but too necessary. Some of old called it the very sinews of discretion. Votes: 0

A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Votes: 0

The power of discretionary disqualification by one law of Parliament, and the necessity of paying every debt of the Civil List by another law of Parliament, if suffered to pass unnoticed, must establish such a fund of rewards and terrors as will make Parliament the best appendage and support of arbitrary power that ever was invented by the wit of man. Votes: 0

Dogs are indeed the most social, affectionate, and amiable animals of the whole brute creation... Votes: 0

All that needs to be done for evil to prevail is good men doing nothing. Votes: 0

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting. Votes: 0

Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy. Votes: 0

A great empire and little minds go ill together. Votes: 0

Good company, lively conversation, and the endearments of friendship fill the mind with great pleasure. Votes: 0

Not men but measures a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honorable engagement. Votes: 0

The objects of a financier are, then, to secure an ample revenue; to impose it with judgment and equality; to employ it economically; and, when necessity obliges him to make use of credit, to secure its foundations in that instance, and for ever, by the clearness and candor of his proceedings, the exactness of his calculations, and the solidity of his funds. Votes: 0

Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other. Votes: 0

The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate. Votes: 0

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe. Votes: 0

Falsehood is a perennial spring. Votes: 0

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds. Votes: 0

No man can mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity. Votes: 0

True humility-the basis of the Christian system-is the low but deep and firm foundation of all virtues. Votes: 0

Free trade is not based on utility but on justice. Votes: 0

Frugality is founded on the principal that all riches have limits. Votes: 0

In the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows. Votes: 0

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver. Votes: 0

I dread our own power and our own ambition; I dread our being too much dreaded....We may say that we shall not abuse this astonishing and hitherto unheard-of-power. But every other nation will think we shall abuse it. It is impossible but that, sooner or later, this state of things must produce a combination against us which may end in our ruin. Votes: 0

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good. Votes: 0

It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact. Votes: 0

A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. Votes: 0

I own that there is a haughtiness and fierceness in human nature which will cause innumerable broils, place men in what situation you please. Votes: 0

My good friends, while I do most earnestly recommend you to take care of your health and safety, as things most precious to us, I would not have that care degenerate into an effeminate and over-curious attention, which is always disgraceful to a man's self, and often troublesome to others. Votes: 0

Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it. Votes: 0

The hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis. Votes: 0

Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil. Votes: 0

Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing. Votes: 0

A populace never rebels from passion for attack, but from impatience of suffering. Votes: 0

By the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young; but, in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression. Votes: 0

I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people. Votes: 0

Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference. Votes: 0

The greatest crimes do not arise from a want of feeling for others but from an over-sensibilit y for ourselves and an over-indulgence to our own desires Votes: 0

A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way towards informing us of the nature of the thing defined. Votes: 0

In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars. Votes: 0

The poorest being that crawls on earth, contending to save itself from injustice and oppression, is an object respectable in the eyes of God and man. Votes: 0

Adversity is a severe instructor, set over us by one who knows us better than we do ourselves. Votes: 0

There are cases in which a man would be ashamed not to have been imposed upon. There is a confidence necessary to human intercourse, and without which men are often more injured by their own suspicions than they would be by the perfidy of others. Votes: 0

To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind. Votes: 0

Great men are the guideposts and landmarks in the state. Votes: 0

Turn over a new leaf. Votes: 0

Party is a body of men united, for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed. Votes: 0

The method of teaching which approaches most nearly to the method of investigation is incomparably the best. Votes: 0

For my part, I am convinced that the method of teaching which approaches most nearly to the method of investigation is incomparably the best; since, not content with serving up a few barren and lifeless truths, it leads to the stock on which they grew. Votes: 0

It is very rare, indeed, for men to be wrong in their feelings concerning public misconduct; as rare to be right in their speculations upon the cause of it. I have constantly observed that the generality of people are fifty years, at least, behind in their politics. Votes: 0

Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety. Votes: 0

I know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power. Votes: 0

The true way to mourn the dead is to take care of the living who belong to them. Votes: 0

The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny. Votes: 0

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. Votes: 0

Somebody has said, that a king may make a nobleman but he cannot make a gentleman. Votes: 0

Religion is for the man in humble life, and to raise his nature, and to put him in mind of a state in which the privileges of opulence will cease, when he will be equal by nature, and may be more than equal by virtue. Votes: 0

Men want to be reminded, who do not want to be taught; because those original ideas of rectitude to which the mind is compelled to assent when they are proposed, are not always as present to us as they ought to be. Votes: 0

History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn. Votes: 0

Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy. If parsimony were to be considered as one of the kinds of that virtue, there is, however, another and a higher economy. Economy is a distinctive virtue, and consists not in saving, but in selection. Votes: 0

Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but selection. Parsimony requires no providence, no sagacity, no powers of combination, no comparison, no judgment. Votes: 0

Art is a partnership not only between those who are living but between those who are dead and those who are yet to be born. Votes: 0

Society is indeed a contract. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. Votes: 0

The parties are the gamesters; but government keeps the table, and is sure to be the winner in the end. Votes: 0

It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people. Votes: 0

Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant. Votes: 0

Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new compositions, any bungler can add to the old. Votes: 0

The religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principles of resistance: it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion. Votes: 0

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter. Votes: 0

People must be taken as they are, and we should never try make them or ourselves better by quarreling with them. Votes: 0

There is a courageous wisdom; there is also a false, reptile prudence, the result not of caution but of fear. Votes: 0

Restraint and discipline and examples of virtue and justice. These are the things that form the education of the world. Votes: 0

When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot possibly be estimated. From that moment, we have no compass to govern us, nor can we know distinctly to what port to steer. Votes: 0

And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them Votes: 0

Fraud is the ready minister of injustice Votes: 0

What is it we all seek for in an election? To answer its real purposes, you must first posses the means of knowing the fitness of your man; and then you must retain some hold upon him by personal obligation or dependence Votes: 0

Public calamity is a mighty leveler Votes: 0

Never despair, but if you do, work in despair Votes: 0

Dangers by being despised grow great Votes: 0

Men are qualified for civil liberties in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites in proportion as their love of justice is above thir rapacity Votes: 0

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones Votes: 0

There never was a bad man that had ability for good service Votes: 0

Woman is not made to be the admiration of all, but the happiness of one. Votes: 0

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."[Preface to Brissot's Address to His Constituents (1794)] Votes: 0

It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters. Votes: 0

Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none. Votes: 0

History is the preceptor of prudence, not principles. Votes: 0

Society is indeed a contract. ... It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. Votes: 0

Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it. Votes: 0

Wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to names; to the causes of evil which are permanent, not to the occasional organs by which they act, and the transitory modes in which they appear. Otherwise you will be wise historically, a fool in practice. Votes: 0

He that accuses all mankind of corruption ought to remember that he is sure to convict only one. Votes: 0

But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Those who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths. Votes: 0

Society is indeed a contract ... it becomes a participant not only between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. Votes: 0

If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed. Votes: 0

The nature of things is, I admit, a sturdy adversary. Votes: 0

And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them. Votes: 0

Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions than ruined by too confident a security. Votes: 0

The most important of all revolutions, a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions. Votes: 0

Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy of superstition. Votes: 0

A perfect democracy is therefore the most shameless thing in the world. Votes: 0

Silence is golden but when it threatens your freedom it's yellow. Votes: 0

They [Americans] augur misgovernment at a distance and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze. Votes: 0

Custom reconciles us to everything. Votes: 0

Manners are of more importance than laws. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe. Votes: 0

Facts are to the mind what food is to the body. On the due digestion of the former depend the strength and wisdom of the one, just as vigor and health depend on the other. The wisest in council, the ablest in debate, and the most agreeable companion in the commerce of human life, is that man who has assimilated to his understanding the greatest number of facts. Votes: 0

Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle. Votes: 0

Next to love, Sympathy is the divinest passion of the human heart. Votes: 0

Virtue will catch as well as vice by contact; and the public stock of honest manly principle will daily accumulate. We are not too nicely to scrutinize motives as long as action is irreproachable. It is enough (and for a worthy man perhaps too much) to deal out its infamy to convicted guilt and declared apostasy. Votes: 0

Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself; and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all it combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. In this partnership all men have equal rights; but not to equal things. Votes: 0

The body of all true religion consists, to be sure, in obedience to the will of the Sovereign of the world, in a confidence in His declarations, and in imitation of His perfections. Votes: 0

True religion is the foundation of society. When that is once shaken by contempt, the whole fabric cannot be stable nor lasting. Votes: 0

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed. Votes: 0

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny. Votes: 0

There is America, which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners, yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world. Votes: 0

In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But theworks of malice and injustice are quite in another style. They are finished with a bold, masterly hand; touched as they are with the spirit of those vehement passions that call forth all our energies, whenever we oppress and persecute.. Votes: 0

A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arises from words. Votes: 0

Between craft and credulity, the voice of reason is stifled. Votes: 0

The only infallible criterion of wisdom to vulgar minds - success. Votes: 0

The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear. Votes: 0

There are three estates in Parliament but in the Reporters' Gallery yonder there sits a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech or witty saying, it is a literal fact, very momentous to us in these times. Votes: 0

Hypocrisy is no cheap vice; nor can our natural temper be masked for many years together. Votes: 0

Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty. Votes: 0

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion. Votes: 0

Education is the cheap defense of nations. Votes: 0

To innovate is not to reform. Votes: 0

Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind. Votes: 0

If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed. Votes: 0

If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived. Votes: 0

A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. Votes: 0

By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation. Votes: 0

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts. Votes: 0

Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all. Votes: 0

Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief. Votes: 0

Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else; and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear which generates true courage. Votes: 0

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites…in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters. Votes: 0

By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little. Votes: 0

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority. Votes: 0

This sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his nature. Votes: 0

All the forces of darkness need to succeed ... is for the people to do nothing. Votes: 0

In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind. Votes: 0

The great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of the great. Votes: 0

That the greatest security of the people, against the encroachments and usurpations of their superiors, is to keep the Spirit of Liberty constantly awake, is an undeniable truth Votes: 0

Man is an animal that cooks his victuals. Votes: 0

Wars are just to those to whom they are necessary. Votes: 0

You will smile here at the consistency of those democratists who, when they are not on their guard, treat the humbler part of the community with the greatest contempt, whilst, at the same time they pretend to make them the depositories of all power. Votes: 0

In a democracy the majority of citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority...and that oppression of the majority will extend to far great number, and will be carried on with much greater fury, than can almost ever be apprehended from the dominion of a single sceptre. Under a cruel prince they have the plaudits of the people to animate their generous constancy under their sufferings; but those who are subjected to wrong under multitudes are deprived of all external consolation: they seem deserted by mankind, overpowered by a conspiracy of their whole species. Votes: 0

Nothing is so rash as fear; its counsels very rarely put off, whilst they are always sure to aggravate the evils from which it would fly. Votes: 0

The essence of tyranny is the enforcement of stupid laws. Votes: 0

The Fate of good men who refuse to become involved in politics is to be ruled by evil men. Votes: 0

When a great man has some one object in view to be achieved in a given time, it may be absolutely necessary for him to walk out of all the common roads. Votes: 0

The great inlet by which a colour for oppression has entered into the world is by one man's pretending to determine concerning the happiness of another. Votes: 0

There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men. Votes: 0

Many of the greatest tyrants on the records of history have begun their reigns in the fairest manner. But the truth is, this unnatural power corrupts both the heart and the understanding. Votes: 0

Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but in selection. Votes: 0

All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing as they must if they believe they can do nothing. There is nothing worse because the council of despair is declaration of irresponsibility; it is Pilate washing his hands. Votes: 0

Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all. Votes: 0

Tyrants seldom want pretexts. Votes: 0

Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new impositions; any bungler can add to the old; but is it altogether wise to have no other bounds to your impositions than the patience of those who are to bear them? Votes: 0

History consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetite. Votes: 0

A coward's courage is in his tongue. Votes: 0

Evil succeeds when good men do nothing Votes: 0

Law and arbitrary power are at eternal enmity. Votes: 0

Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. Votes: 0

Corrupt influence is itself the perennial spring of all prodigality, and of all disorder; it loads us more than millions of debt; takes away vigor from our arms, wisdom from our councils, and every shadow of authority and credit from the most venerable parts of our constitution. Votes: 0

The superfluities of a rich nation furnish a better object of trade than the necessities of a poor one. It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere. Votes: 0

Of all things, wisdom is the most terrified with epidemical fanaticism, because, of all enemies, it is that against which she is the least able to furnish any kind of resource. Votes: 0

You had that action and counteraction which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers draws out the harmony of the universe. Votes: 0

War is the matter which fills all history; and consequently the only, or almost the only, view in which we can see the external of political society is in a hostile shape: and the only actions to which we have always seen, and still see, all of them intent, are such as tend to the destruction of one another. Votes: 0

Power gradually extirpates for the mind every humane and gentle virtue. Votes: 0

Equity money is dynamic and debt money is static. Votes: 0

Nothing, indeed, but the possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man. Votes: 0

Too much idleness, I have observed, fills up a man's time more completely and leaves him less his own master, than any sort of employment whatsoever Votes: 0

War never leaves where it found a nation. Votes: 0

The moment you abate anything from the full rights of men to each govern himself, and suffer any artificial positive limitation upon those rights, from that moment the whole organization of government becomes a consideration of convenience. Votes: 0

Power, in whatever hands, is rarely guilty of too strict limitations on itself. Votes: 0

Nothing tends so much to the corruption of science as to suffer it to stagnate; these waters must be troubled before they can exert their virtues. Votes: 0

If the prudence of reserve and decorum dictates silence in some circumstances, in others prudence of a higher order may justify us in speaking our thoughts. Votes: 0

We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation. Votes: 0

The only kind of sublimity which a painter or sculptor should aim at is to express by certain proportions and positions of limbs and features that strength and dignity of mind, and vigor and activity of body, which enables men to conceive and execute great actions. Votes: 0

Those who have been intoxicated with power... can never willingly abandon it. Votes: 0

Those who attempt to level never equalize Votes: 0

It is the nature of tyranny and rapacity never to learn moderation from the ill-success of first oppressions; on the contrary, all oppressors, all men thinking highly of the methods dictated by their nature, attribute the frustration of their desires to the want of sufficient rigor. Votes: 0

The starry heaven, though it occurs so very frequently to our view, never fails to excite an idea of grandeur. This cannot be owing to the stars themselves, separately considered. The number is certainly the cause. The apparent disorder augments the grandeur, for the appearance of care is highly contrary to our ideas of magnificence. Besides, the stars lie in such apparent confusion, as makes it impossible on ordinary occasions to reckon them. This gives them the advantage of a sort of infinity. Votes: 0

I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong. They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries and in this. But I do say that in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people. Votes: 0

All men have equal rights, but not to equal things. Votes: 0

The truly sublime is always easy, and always natural. Votes: 0

But whoever is a genuine follower of Truth, keeps his eye steady upon his guide, indifferent whither he is led, provided that she is the leader. Votes: 0

There is a time when the hoary head of inveterate abuse will neither draw reverence nor obtain protection. Votes: 0

It is for the most part in our skill in manners, and in the observations of time and place and of decency in general, that what is called taste by way of distinction consists; and which is in reality no other than a more refined judgment. Votes: 0

There is a wide difference between admiration and love. The sublime, which is the cause of the former, always dwells on great objects and terrible; the latter on small ones and pleasing; we submit to what we admire, but we love what submits to us: in one case we are forced, in the other, we are flattered, into compliance. Votes: 0

All men that are ruined, are ruined on the side of their natural propensities. Votes: 0

The only training for the heroic is the mundane. Votes: 0

In general the languages of most unpolished people have a great force and energy of expression; and this is but natural. Uncultivated people are but ordinary observers of things, and not critical in distinguishing them; but, for that reason, they admire more, and are more affected with what they see, and therefore express themselves in a warmer and more passionate manner. Votes: 0

Religion, to have any force upon men's understandings,--indeed, to exist at all,--must be supposed paramount to law, and independent for its substance upon any human institution, else it would be the absurdest thing in the world,--an acknowledged cheat. Votes: 0

I do not hesitate to say that the road to eminence and power, from an obscure condition, ought not to be made too easy, nor a thing too much of course. If rare merit be the rarest of all things, it ought to pass through some sort of probation. The temple of honor ought to be seated on an eminence. If it be open through virtue, let it be remembered, too, that virtue is never tried but by some difficulty and some struggle. Votes: 0

Men who undertake considerable things, even in a regular way, ought to give us ground to presume ability. Votes: 0

The only liberty that is valuable is a liberty connected with order; that not only exists along with order and virtue, but which cannot exist at all without them. It inheres in good and steady government, as in its substance and vital principle. Votes: 0

They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance. Votes: 0

The greatest sin is to do nothing because you can only do a little. Votes: 0

I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that the delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it. Votes: 0

Facts are to the mind what food is to the body. Votes: 0

Beauty is the promise of happiness. Votes: 0

It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs. Votes: 0

What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man. Votes: 0

All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust, and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society. Votes: 0

Applaud us when we run, Console us when we fall, Cheer us when we recover. Votes: 0

Gambling is a principle inherent in human nature. Votes: 0

We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us. Votes: 0

Men love to hear of their power, but have an extreme disrelish to be told their duty. Votes: 0

I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pain of others Votes: 0

When you fear something, learn as much about it as you can. Knowledge conquers fear. Votes: 0

To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed toward a love to our country and to mankind. The interest of that portion of social arrangement is a trust in the hands of all those who compose it; and as none but bad men would justify it in abuse, none but traitors would barter it away for their own personal advantage. Votes: 0

All virtue which is impracticable is spurious. Votes: 0

Evil prevails when good men fail to act. Votes: 0

Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, skeptical, puzzled and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit; and not a series of unconnected acts. Through past prejudice, his duty becomes part of his nature. Votes: 0

One source of the sublime is infinity. Votes: 0

The very name of a politician, a statesman, is sure to cause terror and hatred; it has always connected with it the ideas of treachery, cruelty, fraud, and tyranny. Votes: 0

Politics ought to be adjusted not to human reasonings but to human nature, of which reason is but a part and by no means the greatest part. Votes: 0

I set out with a perfect distrust of my own abilities, a total renunciation of every speculation of my own, and with a profound reverence for the wisdom of our ancestors, who have left us the inheritance of so happy a Constitution and so flourishing an empire, and, what is a thousand times more valuable, the treasury of the maxims and principles which formed the one and obtained the other. Votes: 0

The cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judgment. Votes: 0

It is known that the taste--whatever it is--is improved exactly as we improve our judgment, by extending our knowledge, by a steady attention to our object, and by frequent exercise. Votes: 0

Prudence is a quality incompatible with vice, and can never be effectively enlisted in its cause. Votes: 0

Whenever government abandons law, it proclaims anarchy. Votes: 0

The marketplace obliges men, whether they will or not, in pursuing their own selfish interests, to connect the general good with their own individual success. Votes: 0

Nothing so effectually deadens the taste of the sublime as that which is light and radiant. Votes: 0

Fellowship in treason is a bad ground of confidence. Votes: 0

Government is the exercise of all the great qualities of the human mind. Votes: 0

The conduct of a losing party never appears right: at least it never can possess the only infallible criterion of wisdom to vulgar judgements-success. Votes: 0

All writers on the science of policy are agreed, and they agree with experience, that all governments must frequently infringe the rules of justice to support themselves; that truth must give way to dissimulation, honesty to convenience, and humanity itself to the reigning of interest. The whole of this mystery of iniquity is called the reason of state. Votes: 0

A man is allowed sufficient freedom of thought, provided he knows how to choose his subject properly.... But the scene is changed as you come homeward, and atheism or treason may be the names given in Britain to what would be reason and truth if asserted in China. Votes: 0

To speak of atrocious crimes in mild language is treason to virtue. Votes: 0

It is by sympathy we enter into the concerns of others, that we are moved as they are moved, and are never suffered to be indifferent spectators of almost anything which men can do or suffer. For sympathy may be considered as a sort of substitution, by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in many respects as he is affected. Votes: 0

Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure - but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico, or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence, because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. Votes: 0

The people of England well know that the idea of inheritance furnishes a sure principle of conservation and a sure principle of transmission, without at all excluding a principle of improvement. Votes: 0

If we owned the property, we will be free and prosperous. If so they regain control, we will become poor Votes: 0

The liberty I mean is social freedom. It is that state of things in which liberty is secured by the equality of restraint. A constitution of things in which the liberty of no one man, and no body of men, and no number of men, can find means to trespass on the liberty of any person, or any description of persons, in the society. This kind of liberty is, indeed, but another name for justice. Votes: 0

Freedom without virtue is not freedom but license to pursue whatever passions prevail in the intemperate mind; man's right to freedom being in exact proportion to his willingness to put chains upon his own appetites; the less restraint from within, the more must be imposed from without. Votes: 0

The wise determine from the gravity of the case; the irritable, from sensibility to oppression; the high minded, from disdain and indignation at abusive power in unworthy hands. Votes: 0

You will not think it unnatural that those who have an object depending, which strongly engages their hopes and fears, should be somewhat inclining to superstition. Votes: 0

Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit, and a series of unconnected arts. Though just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature. Votes: 0

Flattery is no more than what raises in a man's mind an idea of a preference which he has not. Votes: 0

Men are as much blinded by the extremes of misery as by the extremes of prosperity. Votes: 0

The esteem of wise and good men is the greatest of all temporal encouragements to virtue; and it is a mark of an abandoned spirit to have no regard to it. Votes: 0

Religion is among the most powerful causes of enthusiasm. Votes: 0

Taste and elegance, though they are reckoned only among the smaller and secondary morals, yet are of no mean importance in the regulations of life. A moral taste is not of force to turn vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue with something like the blandishments of pleasure, and it infinitely abates the evils of vice. Votes: 0

The moment that government appears at market, the principles of the market will be subverted. Votes: 0

The same sun which gilds all nature, and exhilarates the whole creation, does not shine upon disappointed ambition. Votes: 0

Never, no never, did Nature say one thing, and wisdom another. Votes: 0

There are circumstances in which despair does not imply inactivity. Votes: 0

A speculative despair is unpardonable where it our duty to act. Votes: 0

Curiosity is the most superficial of all the affections; it changes its object perpetually; it has an appetite which is very sharp, but very easily satisfied, and it has always an appearance of giddiness, restlessness and anxiety. Votes: 0

Futurity is the great concern of mankind. Votes: 0

Our manners, our civilization, and all the good things connected with manners and civilization, have, in this European world of ours, depended for ages upon two principles: I mean the spirit of a gentleman, and the spirit of religion. Votes: 0

Instead of casting away all our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very considerable degree, and, to take more shame to ourselves, we cherish them because they are prejudices; and the longer they have lasted and the more generally they have prevailed, the more we cherish them. We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason; because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and of ages. Votes: 0

Poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general as well as a more powerful dominion over the passions than the art of painting. Votes: 0

Pleasure of every kind quickly satisfies. Votes: 0

In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will remain for some time mutinous and full of faction, until some popular general, who understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself. Armies will obey him on his personal account. There is no other way of securing military obedience in this state of things. Votes: 0

An extreme rigor is sure to arm everything against it. Votes: 0

Obstinacy, sir, is certainly a great vice; and in the changeful state of political affairs it is frequently the cause of great mischief. It happens, however, very unfortunately, that almost the whole line of the great and masculine virtues--constancy, gravity, magnanimity, fortitude, fidelity, and firmness--are closely allied to this disagreeable quality, of which you have so just an abhorrence; and in their excess all these virtues very easily fall into it. Votes: 0

Man acts from adequate motives relative to his interest, and not on metaphysical speculations. Votes: 0

A jealous lover lights his torch from the firebrand of the fiend. Votes: 0

Oppression makes wise men mad; but the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which is better than the sobriety of fools. Votes: 0

It is by imitation, far more than by precept, that we learn everything; and what we learn thus, we acquire not only more effectually, but more pleasantly. Votes: 0

Humanity cannot be degraded by humiliation. Votes: 0

Is it in destroying and pulling down that skill is displayed? The shallowest understanding, the rudest hand, is more than equal to that task. Votes: 0

The perfection of conversation is not to play a regular sonata, but, like the AEolian harp, to await the inspiration of the passing breeze. Votes: 0

Make the Revolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery of future revolutions. Votes: 0

We must soften into a credulity below the milkiness of infancy to think all men virtuous. We must be tainted with a malignity truly diabolical, to believe all the world to be equally wicked and corrupt. Votes: 0

The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself. Votes: 0

When you find me attempting to break into your house to take your plate, under any pretence whatsoever, but most of all under pretence of purity of religion and Christian charity shoot me for a robber and a hypocrite, as in that case I shall certainly be. Votes: 0

Liberty, without wisdom, is license. Votes: 0

Over-taxation cost England her colonies of North America. Votes: 0

He that borrows the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own; he that uses that of a superior elevates his own to the stature of that he contemplates. Votes: 0

By looking into physical causes our minds are opened and enlarged; and in this pursuit, whether we take or whether we lose the game, the chase is certainly of service. Votes: 0

The great difference between the real leader and the pretender is that the one sees into the future, while the other regards only the present; the one lives by the day, and acts upon expediency; the other acts on enduring principles and for the immortality. Votes: 0

Neither the few nor the many have a right to act merely by their will, in any matter connected with duty, trust, engagement, or obligation. Votes: 0

I decline the election. It has ever been my rule through life, to observe a proportion between my efforts and my objects. I have never been remarkable for a bold, active, and sanguine pursuit of advantages that are personal to myself. Votes: 0

Vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness. Votes: 0

Guilt was never a rational thing; it distorts all the faculties of the human mind, it perverts them, it leaves a man no longer in the free use of his reason, it puts him into confusion. Votes: 0

Genuine simplicity of heart is a healing and cementing principle. Votes: 0

Contempt is not a thing to be despised. It may be borne with a calm and equal mind, but no man, by lifting his head high, can pretend that he does not perceive the scorns that are poured down on him from above. Votes: 0

The tribunal of conscience exists independent of edicts and decrees. Votes: 0

Surely the church is a place where one day's truce ought to be allowed to the dissensions and animosities of mankind. Votes: 0

The introduction of Christianity, which, under whatever form, always confers such inestimable benefits on mankind, soon made a sensible change in these rude and fierce manners. Votes: 0

It is undoubtedly true, though it may seem paradoxical,--but, in general, those who are habitually employed in finding and displaying faults are unqualified for the work of reformation. Votes: 0

Teach me, O lark! with thee to greatly rise, to exalt my soul and lift it to the skies. Votes: 0

It is by bribing, not so often by being bribed, that wicked politicians bring ruin on mankind. Avarice is a rival to the pursuits of many. Votes: 0

Sallust is indisputably one of the best historians among the Romans, both for the purity of his language and the elegance of his style. Votes: 0

Turbulent, discontented men of quality, in proportion as they are puffed up with personal pride and arrogance, generally despise their own order. Votes: 0

The pride of men will not often suffer reason to have scope until it can be no longer of service. Votes: 0

He who calls in the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own; and he who profits by a superior understanding raises his powers to a level with the height of the superior standing he unites with. Votes: 0

Dangers by being despised grow great. Votes: 0

Thank God, men that art greatly guilty are never wise. Votes: 0

Greater mischief happens often from folly, meanness, and vanity than from the greater sins of avarice and ambition. Votes: 0

Though ugliness be the opposite of beauty, it is not the opposite to proportion and fitness; for it is possible that a thing may be very ugly with any proportions, and with a perfect fitness for any use. Votes: 0

A great deal of the furniture of ancient tyranny is torn to rags; the rest is entirely out of fashion. Votes: 0

Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatever; but, as in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth. It is a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks truth with measure, that he may speak it the longer. Votes: 0

A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate. Votes: 0

They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate. Votes: 0

No men can act with effect who do not act in concert; no men can act in concert who do not act with confidence; no men can act with confidence who are not bound together with common opinions, common affections, and common interests. Votes: 0

There is nothing in the world really beneficial that does not lie within the reach of an informed understanding and a well-protected pursuit. Votes: 0

The question is not whether you have a right to render people miserable, but whether it is not in your best interest to make them happy. Votes: 0

When any work seems to have required immense force and labor to effect it, the idea is grand. Votes: 0

Vice incapacitates a man from all public duty; it withers the powers of his under- standing, and makes his mind paralytic. Votes: 0

Man is by his constitution a religious animal. Votes: 0

It ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. Votes: 0

It is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals that their maxims have a plausible air; and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as copper coin; and about as valuable. Votes: 0

I do not know how to wish success to those whose Victory is to separate from us a large and noble part of our Empire. Still less do I wish success to injustice, oppression and absurdity. Votes: 0

Evils we have had continually calling for reformation, and reformations more grievous than any evils. Votes: 0

Men have no right to put the well-being of the present generation wholly out of the question. Perhaps the only moral trust with any certainty in our hands is the care of our own time. Votes: 0

As mankind becomes more enlightened to know their real interests, they will esteem the value of agriculture; they will find it in their natural--their destined occupation. Votes: 0

Parliament is a deliberate assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purpose, not local prejudices ought to guide but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. Votes: 0

Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling .... When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and [yet] with certain modifications, they may be, and they are delightful, as we every day experience. Votes: 0

Great men are never sufficiently shown but in struggles. Votes: 0

The grave is a common treasury, to which we must all be taken. Votes: 0

Refined policy ever has been the parent of confusion, and ever will be so as long as the world endures. Plain good intention, which is as easily discovered at the first view as fraud is surely detected at last, is of no mean force in the government of mankind. Votes: 0

To be struck with His power, it is only necessary to open our eyes. Votes: 0

Those who quit their proper character to assume what does not belong to them are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave and of the character they assume. Votes: 0

Nothing ought to be more weighed than the nature of books recommended by public authority. So recommended, they soon form the character of the age. Votes: 0

I despair of ever receiving the same degree of pleasure from the most exalted performances of genius which I felt in childhood from pieces which my present judgment regards as trifling and contemptible. Votes: 0

Religion is the basis of civil society, and the source of all good and of all comfort. Votes: 0

Water is insipid, inodorous, colorless and smooth. Votes: 0

I consider how little man is, yet, in his own mind, how great. He is lord and master of all things, yet scarce can command anything. Votes: 0

For there is in mankind an unfortunate propensity to make themselves, their views and their works, the measure of excellence in every thing whatsoever Votes: 0

Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality. Votes: 0

To give freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to guide; it only requires to let go the rein. But to form a free government; that is, to temper together these opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one work, requires much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and combining mind. Votes: 0

Magnificence is likewise a source of the sublime. A great profusion of things which are splendid or valuable in themselves is magnificent. The starry heaven, though it occurs so very frequently to our view, never fails to excite an idea of grandeur. Votes: 0

Unsociable humors are contracted in solitude, which will, in the end, not fail of corrupting the understanding as well as the manners, and of utterly disqualifying a man for the satisfactions and duties of life. Men must be taken as they are, and we neither make them or ourselves better by flying from or quarreling with them. Votes: 0

An entire life of solitude contradicts the purpose of our being, since death itself is scarcely an idea of more terror. Votes: 0

Depend upon it that the lovers of freedom will be free. Votes: 0

Continue to instruct the world; and - whilst we carry on a poor unequal conflict with the passions and prejudices of our day, perhaps with no better weapons than other passions and prejudices of our own - convey wisdom to future generations. Votes: 0

The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone! Votes: 0

The public interest requires doing today those things that men of intelligence and good will would wish, five or ten years hence, had been done. Votes: 0

There is a sort of enthusiasm in all projectors, absolutely necessary for their affairs, which makes them proof against the most fatiguing delays, the most mortifying disappointments, the most shocking insults; and, what is severer than all, the presumptuous judgement of the ignorant upon their designs. Votes: 0

The ocean is an object of no small terror. Votes: 0

It is the love of the people; it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army 168 and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience, without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber. Votes: 0

There is nothing that God has judged good for us that He has not given us the means to accomplish, both in the natural and the moral world. Votes: 0

There never was a bad man that had ability for good service. Votes: 0

Knowledge of those unalterable Relations which Providence has ordained that every thing should bear to every other...To these we should conform in good Earnest; and not think to force Nature, and the whole Order of her System, by a Compliance with our Pride, and Folly, to conform to our artificial Regulations. Votes: 0

Men have no right to what is not reasonable, and to what is not for their benefit. Votes: 0

The great Error of our Nature is, not to know where to stop, not to be satisfied with any reasonable Acquirement; not to compound with our Condition; but to lose all we have gained by an insatiable Pursuit after more. Votes: 0

Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures. Votes: 0

I cannot stand forward, and give praise or blame to any thing which relates to human actions, and human concerns, on a simple view of the subject as it stands stripped of every relation, in all the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction. Circumstances (which with some gentlemen pass for nothing) give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour, and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind. Votes: 0

Fraud is the ready minister of injustice. Votes: 0

Fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren. Votes: 0

Contempt is not a thing to be despised. Votes: 0

My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron. Votes: 0

I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard than in the tomb of the Capulets. Votes: 0

No government ought to exist for the purpose of checking the prosperity of its people or to allow such a principle in its policy. Votes: 0

Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found. Votes: 0

I take toleration to be a part of religion. I do not know which I would sacrifice; I would keep them both: it is not necessary that I should sacrifice either. Votes: 0

The worthy gentleman who has been snatched from us at the moment of the election, and in the middle of the contest, whilst his desires were as warm and his hopes as eager as ours, has feelingly told us what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue. Votes: 0

It has all the contortions of the sibyl without the inspiration. Votes: 0

Responsibility prevents crimes. Votes: 0

Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray, to not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that, of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little, shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour. Votes: 0

The whole compass of the language is tried to find sinonimies [synonyms] and circumlocutions for massacres and murder. Things never called by their common names. Massacre is sometimes called agitation, sometimes effervescence, sometimes excess sometimes too continued an exercise of revolutionary power. Votes: 0

Where mystery begins religion ends. Votes: 0

Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young peoples, and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation. Votes: 0

Crimes lead one into another; they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries. Votes: 0

There ought to be system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely. Votes: 0

A nation without means of reform is without means of survival. Votes: 0

No sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity. Votes: 0

Some degree of novelty must be one of the materials in almost every instrument which works upon the mind; and curiosity blends itself, more or less, with all our pleasures. Votes: 0

The wisdom of our ancestors. Votes: 0

The more accurately we search into the human mind, the stronger traces we everywhere find of the wisdom of Him who made it. Votes: 0

Where two motives, neither of them perfectly justifiable, may be assigned, the worst has the chance of being preferred. Votes: 0

Education is a nation's cheapest defence Votes: 0

Who can know her, and himself, and entertain much hope? Who can see and know such a creature, and not love her to distraction? She has all the softness that does not imply weakness... she is not made to be the admiration of everybody, but the happiness of one. Votes: 0

To reach the height of our ambition is like trying to reach the rainbow; as we advance it recedes. Votes: 0

There are some men formed with feelings so blunt that they can hardly be said to be awake during the whole course of their lives. Votes: 0

What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue! Votes: 0

"War," says Machiavelli, "ought to be the only study of a prince;" and by a prince he means every sort of state, however constituted. "He ought," says this great political doctor, "to consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes ability to execute military plans. "A meditation on the conduct of political societies made old Hobbes imagine that war was the state of nature. Votes: 0

The most favourable laws can do very little towards the happiness of people when the disposition of the ruling power is adverse to them. Votes: 0

An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent. Votes: 0

Learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude. Votes: 0

I find along with many virtues in my countrymen there is a jealousy, a soreness, and readiness to take offence, as if they were the most helpless and impotent of mankind, and yet a violence... and a boistrousness in their resentment, as if they had been puffed up with the highest prosperity and power. they will not only be served, but it must also be in their own way and on their own principles and even in words and language that they liked... which renders it very difficult for a plain unguarded man as I am to have anything to do with them or their affairs. Votes: 0

England and Ireland may flourish together. The world is large enough for both of us. Let it be our care not to make ourselves too little for it. Votes: 0

When slavery is established in any part of the world, those who are free are by far the most proud and jealous of their freedom. Votes: 0

Reflect how you are to govern a people who think they ought to be free, and think they are not. Your scheme yields no revenue; it yields nothing but discontent, disorder, disobedience; and such is the state of America, that after wading through up to your eyes in blood, you could only end up where you begun; that is, to tax where no revenue is to be found... all is confusion beyond it. Votes: 0

We are in a war of a peculiar nature. It is not with an ordinary community, which is hostile or friendly as passion or as interest may veer about: not with a state which makes war through wantonness, and abandons it through lassitude. We are at war with a system, which by its essence, is inimical to all other governments, and which makes peace or war, as peace and war may best contribute to their subversion. It is with an armed doctrine that we are at war. It has, by its essence, a faction of opinion, and of interest, and of enthusiasm, in every country. Votes: 0

In on summer they have done their business... they have completely pulled down to the ground their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their revenue, their army, their navy, their commerce, their arts, and their manufactures... destroyed all balances and counterpoises which serve to fix a state and give it steady direction, and then they melted down the whole into one incongrous mass of mob and democracy... the people, along with their political servitude, have thrown off the yoke of law and morals. Votes: 0

The men of England,- the men, I mean, of light and leading in England. Votes: 0

In their nomination to office they will not appoint to the exercise of authority as to a pitiful job, but as to a holy function. Votes: 0

The science of constructing a commonwealth or renovating it, or reforming it, is...not to be taught a priori...That which in the first instance is prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter operation, and its excellence may rise even from the ill effects it produces in the beginning. The reverse also happens; and very plausible schemes, with very pleasing commencements, have often shameful and lamentable conclusions. Votes: 0

He was not merely a chip off the old block, but the old block itself. Votes: 0

The grand instructor, time. Votes: 0

The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own. Votes: 0

Early and provident fear is the mother of safety. Votes: 0

In a free country every man thinks he has a concern in all public matters,--that he has a right to form and a right to deliver an opinion on them. This it is that fills countries with men of ability in all stations. Votes: 0

Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years. Votes: 0

God has sometimes converted wickedness into madness; and it is to the credit of human reason that men who are not in some degree mad are never capable of being in the highest degree wicked. Votes: 0

Delusion and weakness produce not one mischief the less, because they are universal. Votes: 0

That cardinal virtue, temperance. Votes: 0

They made and recorded a sort of institute and digest of anarchy, called the rights of man. Votes: 0

The individual is foolish; the multitude, for the moment is foolish, when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise, and, when time is given to it, as a species it always acts right. Votes: 0

In all forms of government the people is the true legislator. Votes: 0

There was an ancient Roman lawyer, of great fame in the history of Roman jurisprudence, whom they called Cui Bono, from his having first introduced into judicial proceedings the argument, "What end or object could the party have had in the act with which he is accused. Votes: 0

To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to deprecate the value of freedom itself. Votes: 0

The yielding of the weak is the concession to fear. Votes: 0

To govern according to the sense and agreement of the interests of the people is a great and glorious object of governance. This object cannot be obtained but through the medium of popular election, and popular election is a mighty evil. Votes: 0

Man is by his constitution a religious animal; atheism is against not only our reason, but our instincts. Votes: 0

A thing may look specious in theory, and yet be ruinous in practice; a thing may look evil in theory, and yet be in practice excellent. Votes: 0

Nothing less will content me, than wholeAmerica. Votes: 0

We begin our public affection in our families. No cold relation is a zealous citizen. Votes: 0

The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise isgone! it isgone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness. Votes: 0

That great chain of causes, which, linking one to another, even to the throne of God Himself, can never be unraveled by any industry of ours. Votes: 0

I have been told by an eminent bookseller, that in no branch of his business , after tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as those on the law exported to the Plantations . Votes: 0

As to great and commanding talents, they are the gift of Providence in some way unknown to us, they rise where they are least expected; they fail when everything seems disposed to produce them, or at least to call them forth. Votes: 0

It is better to cherish virtue and humanity, by leaving much to free will, even with some loss of the object , than to attempt to make men mere machines and instruments of political benevolence. The world on the whole will gain by a liberty, without which virtue cannot exist. Votes: 0

Jacobinism is the revolt of the enterprising talents of a country against its property. Votes: 0

A good parson once said that where mystery begins religion ends. Cannot I say, as truly at least, of human laws, that where mystery begins justice ends? Votes: 0

It is the function of a judge not to make but to declare the law, according to the golden mete-wand of the law and not by the crooked cord of discretion. Votes: 0

Among precautions against ambition, it may not be amiss to take precautions against our own. I must fairly say, I dread our own power and our own ambition: I dread our being too much dreaded. Votes: 0

My vigour relents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty. Votes: 0

I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche, upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases. Votes: 0

If any ask me what a free government is, I answer, that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think so,and that they, and not I, are the natural, lawful, and competent judges of this matter. Votes: 0

Public calamity is a mighty leveller. Votes: 0

A nation is not conquered which is perpetually to be conquered. Votes: 0

Spain: A whale stranded upon the coast of Europe. Votes: 0

It is hard to say whether doctors of law or divinity have made the greater advances in the lucrative business of mystery. Votes: 0

To execute laws is a royal office; to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust. Votes: 0

An appearance of delicacy, and even fragility, is almost essential to beauty. Votes: 0

It is undoubtedly the business of ministers very much to consult the inclinations of the people, but they ought to take great care that they do not receive that inclination from the few persons who may happen to approach them. Votes: 0

Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament. Votes: 0

General rebellions and revolts of a whole people never were encouraged now or at any time. They are always provoked. Votes: 0

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Votes: 0

Some decent regulated pre-eminence, some preference (not exclusive appropriation) given to birth, is neither unnatural, nor unjust, nor impolite. Votes: 0

It is from this absolute indifference and tranquillity of the mind, that mathematical speculations derive some of the most considerable advantages; because there is nothing to interest the imagination; because the judgment sits free and unbiased to examine the point. All proportions, every arrangement of quantity, is alike to the understanding, because the same truths result to it from all; from greater from lesser, from equality and inequality. Votes: 0

Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement. No sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity. The cause of civil liberty and civil government gains as little as that of religion by this confusion of duties. Those who quit their proper character to assume what does not belong to them are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave and of the character they assume. Votes: 0

But a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition, to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution. Votes: 0

What is it we all seek for in an election? To answer its real purposes, you must first possess the means of knowing the fitness of your man; and then you must retain some hold upon him by personal obligation or dependence. Votes: 0

It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere. Votes: 0

The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth. Votes: 0

Laws are commanded to hold their tongues among arms; and tribunals fall to the ground with the peace they are no longer able to uphold. Votes: 0

Wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to names; to the causes of evil which are permanent, not the occasional organs by which they act, and the transitory modes in which they appear. Votes: 0

The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered. Votes: 0

As the rose-tree is composed of the sweetest flowers and the sharpest thorns, as the heavens are sometimes overcast—alternately tempestuous and serene—so is the life of man intermingled with hopes and fears, with joys and sorrows, with pleasure and pain. Votes: 0

All those instances to be found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which affrighted Nature recoils, are their chosen and almost sole examples for the instruction of their youth. Votes: 0

All wealth is power, so power must infallibly draw wealth to itself by some means or other. Votes: 0

The blood of man should never be shed but to redeem the blood of man. It is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our God, for our country, for our kind. The rest is vanity; the rest is crime. Votes: 0

Laws, like houses, lean on one another. Votes: 0

By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of a summer. Votes: 0

In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed and the boldest staggered. Votes: 0