249 quotes
An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.
Jacobinism is the revolt of the enterprising talents of a country against its property.
Letters On a Regicide Peace (1796)
I am attached to Christianity at large; much from conviction; more from affection.
So far as it has gone, it probably is the most pure and defecated publick good which ever has been conferred on mankind.
An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791)
The art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.
No man can mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity.
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
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.
The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear.
Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit, and not a series of unconnected acts. Through just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature.
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
Resolved to die in the last dike of prevarication.
It cannot at this time be too often repeated; line upon line; precept upon precept; until it comes into the currency of a proverb, To innovate is not to reform.
A Letter to a Noble Lord (1796)
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.
It shews the anxiety of the great men who influenced the conduct of affairs at that great event, to make the Revolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery of future revolutions.
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
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.
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.
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
They, who raise suspicions on the good on account of the behaviour of ill men, are of the party of the latter.
Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777)
Slavery they can have anywhere. It is a weed that grows in every soil.
All government — indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act — is founded on compromise and barter.
We have an enemy, to whose virtues we can owe nothing; but on this occasion we are infinitely obliged to one of his vices. We owe more to his insolence than to our own precaution.
Letters On a Regicide Peace (1796)
No sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity.
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)