23 quotes
Truth lies within a little and certain compass, but error is immense.
Reflections upon Exile (1716)
Our world seems to be, in many respects, the bedlam of every other system of intelligent creatures.
The landed men are the true owners of our political vessel, the moneyed men are no more than passengers in it.
Some Reflections on the Present State of the Nation (1753)
I have read somewhere or other, — in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, I think, — that history is philosophy teaching by examples.
They (Thucydides and Xenophon) maintained the dignity of history.
Nations, like men, have their infancy.
The minister [Robert Walpole] preaches corruption aloud and constantly, like an impudent missionary of vice.
The Idea of a Patriot King (1738)
Philosophers hasten too much from the analytic to the synthetic method; that is, they draw general conclusions from too small a number of particular observations and experiments.
We are born too late to see the beginning, and we die too soon to see the end of many things.
The shortest and surest way of arriving at real knowledge is to unlearn the lessons we have been taught, to mount the first principles, and take nobody's word about them.
Like other amphibious animals, we must come occasionally on shore: but the water is more properly our element, and in it, like them, as we find our greatest security, so we exert our greatest force.
The Idea of a Patriot King (1738)
It is the modest, not the presumptuous, inquirer who makes a real and safe progress in the discovery of divine truths. One follows Nature and Nature's God; that is, he follows God in his works and in his word.
The manners of our fore-fathers were, I believe, in many respects better: they had more probity perhaps, they had certainly more show of honour, and greater industry.
On the Spirit of Patriotism (1736)
My aim is to fix this principle, that limitations on a crown ought to be carried as far as it is necessary to secure the liberties of a people; and that all such limitations may subsist, without weakening or endangering monarchy.
The Idea of a Patriot King (1738)
The French may improve their natural wealth and power by the improvement of trade and commerce. We can have no wealth, nor power by consequence, as Europe is now constituted, without the improvement of them, nor in any degree but proportionably to this improvement.
The Idea of a Patriot King (1738)
[N]o human institution can arrive at perfection, and the most that human wisdom can do, is to procure the same or greater good, at the expence of less evil.
On the Spirit of Patriotism (1736)
A peace must be had; and all mankind sees plainly now, in how vile a manner former opportunities were neglected of making a better than at this hour we have reason to expect.
To what higher station, to what greater glory can any mortal aspire, than to be, during the whole course of his life, the support of good, the controul of bad government, and the guardian of public liberty?
On the Spirit of Patriotism (1736)
There must be an absolute, unlimited, and uncontroulable power lodged somewhere in every government; but to constitute monarchy, or the government of a single person, it is not necessary that this power should be lodged in the monarch alone.
The Idea of a Patriot King (1738)
The service of our country is no chimerical, but a real duty. He who admits the proofs of any other moral duty, drawn from the constitution of human nature, or from the moral fitness and unfitness of things, must admit them in favour of this duty, or be reduced to the most absurd inconsistency.
On the Spirit of Patriotism (1736)