Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
The great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of the great.
Where two motives, neither of them perfectly justifiable, may be assigned, the worst has the chance of being preferred.
Restraint and discipline and examples of virtue and justice. These are the things that form the education of the world.
An entire life of solitude contradicts the purpose of our being, since death itself is scarcely an idea of more terror.
It is hard to say whether doctors of law or divinity have made the greater advances in the lucrative business of mystery.
A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way towards informing us of the nature of the thing defined.
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.
Vice incapacitates a man from all public duty; it withers the powers of his under- standing, and makes his mind paralytic.
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.
This sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his nature.
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.
There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.
Oppression makes wise men mad; but the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which is better than the sobriety of fools.
Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.
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.
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.
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
True religion is the foundation of society. When that is once shaken by contempt, the whole fabric cannot be stable nor lasting.
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.
No government ought to exist for the purpose of checking the prosperity of its people or to allow such a principle in its policy.
Poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general as well as a more powerful dominion over the passions than the art of painting.
All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.
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.
The love of lucre, though sometimes carried to a ridiculous excess, a vicious excess, is the grand cause of prosperity to all States.
If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived.
Nothing, indeed, but the possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man.
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.
It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
Sallust is indisputably one of the best historians among the Romans, both for the purity of his language and the elegance of his style.
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.
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.
The most favourable laws can do very little towards the happiness of people when the disposition of the ruling power is adverse to them.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The perfection of conversation is not to play a regular sonata, but, like the AEolian harp, to await the inspiration of the passing breeze.
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.
I own that there is a haughtiness and fierceness in human nature which will cause innumerable broils, place men in what situation you please.
Is it in destroying and pulling down that skill is displayed? The shallowest understanding, the rudest hand, is more than equal to that task.
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.
There is nothing in the world really beneficial that does not lie within the reach of an informed understanding and a well-protected pursuit.
Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.
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.
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.
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.
But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.
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.