249 quotes
These few have the passions of the one; and they unite to strengthen themselves, and to secure the gratification of their lawless passions at the expense of the general good.
A Vindication of Natural Society (1756)
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.
A Letter to a Noble Lord (1796)
Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
I should not be surprized at seeing a French Army conveyed by a British Navy to an attack upon this Kingdom.
You are, my Lord, but just entering into the world; I am going out of it. I have played long enough to be heartily tired of the drama.
A Vindication of Natural Society (1756)
Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom.
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
Public life is a situation of power and energy; he trespasses against his duty who sleeps upon his watch, as well as he that goes over to the enemy.
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770)
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.
Preface to Brissot's Address (1794)
Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.
A Letter to a Noble Lord (1796)
Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new impositions, any bungler can add to the old.
Speech on the Independence of Parliament (1780)
If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived.
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
As much injustice and tyranny has been practised in a few months by a French democracy, as in all the arbitrary monarchies in Europe in the forty years of my observation.
The Africans had that claim on our humanity which could not be resisted, whatever might have been advanced by an hon. gentleman in defence of the property of the planters.
Whatever is supreme in a state, ought to have, as much as possible, its judicial authority so constituted as not only not to depend upon it, but in some sort to balance it.
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
So then because some towns in England are not represented, America is to have no representative at all. They are "our children"; put when children ask for bread we are not to give a stone.
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.
Letters On a Regicide Peace (1796)
They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.
Speech on the Independence of Parliament (1780)
[T]he age of chivalry is gone.—That of sophisters, œconomists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observation of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
The wise will 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.
Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)