249 quotes
In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed, and the boldest staggered. The circumstances are in a great measure new. We have hardly any land-marks from the wisdom of our ancestors, to guide us. At best we can only follow the spirit of their proceeding in other cases.
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770)
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.
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
You may have made a Revolution, but not a Reformation. You may have subverted Monarchy, but not recover'd freedom.
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
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.
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757)
So to be patriots as not to forget we are gentlemen.
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770)
The wisdom of our ancestors.
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.
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.
But if we think this necessity rather imaginary than real, we should renounce their dreams of society, together with their visions of religion, and vindicate ourselves into perfect liberty.
A Vindication of Natural Society (1756)
If you say, that natural religion is a sufficient guide without the foreign aid of revelation, on what principle should political laws become necessary? Is not the same reason available in theology and in politics?
A Vindication of Natural Society (1756)
Young man, 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.
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."
On the Impeachment of Warren Hastings (1794)
My Lords, to obtain empire is common; to govern it well has been rare indeed. To chastise the guilt of those who have been instruments of imperial sway over other nations by the high superintending justice of the sovereign state has not many striking examples among any people.
I conceive that the Duke of Brunswick is as much fighting the Battle of the Crown of England as the Duke of Cumberland did at Culloden.
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.
Manners are of more importance than laws. The law can touch us here and there, now and then. 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 in.
Letters On a Regicide Peace (1796)
In vain you tell me that artificial government is good, but that I fall out only with the abuse. The thing! the thing itself is the abuse!
A Vindication of Natural Society (1756)
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.
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
Falsehood has a perennial spring.