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Instead Of Casting Away All Our Old Prejudices, We Cherish Them To A Very Considerable Degree, And, To Take More Shame To Ourselves, We Cherish Them Because They Are Prejudices; And The Longer They Have Lasted And The More Generally They Have Prevailed, The More We Cherish Them. We Are Afraid To Put Men To Live And Trade Each On His Own Private Stock Of Reason; Because We Suspect That This Stock In Each Man Is Small, And That The Individuals Would Do Better To Avail Themselves Of The General Bank And Capital Of Nations And Of Ages.

-Edmund Burke

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Instead Of Casting Away

Edmund Burke

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Instead Of Casting Away All Our Old Prejudices, We Cherish Them To A Very Considerable Degree, And, To Take More Shame To Ourselves, We Cherish Them Because They Are Prejudices; And The Longer They Have Lasted And The More Generally They Have Prevailed, The More We Cherish Them. We Are Afraid To Put Men To Live And Trade Each On His Own Private Stock Of Reason; Because We Suspect That This Stock In Each Man Is Small, And That The Individuals Would Do Better To Avail Themselves Of The General Bank And Capital Of Nations And Of Ages.

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Prejudice Is Of Ready Application In The Emergency; It Previously Engages The Mind In A Steady Course Of Wisdom And Virtue, And Does Not Leave The Man Hesitating In The Moment Of Decision, Skeptical, Puzzled And Unresolved. Prejudice Renders A Man's Virtue His Habit; And Not A Series Of Unconnected Acts. Through Past Prejudice, His Duty Becomes Part Of His Nature.

The Only Infallible Criterion Of Wisdom To Vulgar Minds - Success.

The First And Simplest Emotion Which We Discover In The Human Mind, Is Curiosity.

When A Great Man Has Some One Object In View To Be Achieved In A Given Time, It May Be Absolutely Necessary For Him To Walk Out Of All The Common Roads.

Bad Laws Are The Worst Sort Of Tyranny.

Depend Upon It That The Lovers Of Freedom Will Be Free.

The Traveller Has Reached The End Of The Journey!

Taste And Elegance, Though They Are Reckoned Only Among The Smaller And Secondary Morals, Yet Are Of No Mean Importance In The Regulations Of Life. A Moral Taste Is Not Of Force To Turn Vice Into Virtue; But It Recommends Virtue With Something Like The Blandishments Of Pleasure, And It Infinitely Abates The Evils Of Vice.

Where Mystery Begins Religion Ends.

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.

Of All Things, Wisdom Is The Most Terrified With Epidemical Fanaticism, Because, Of All Enemies, It Is That Against Which She Is The Least Able To Furnish Any Kind Of Resource.

I Would Rather Sleep In The Southern Corner Of A Little Country Churchyard Than In The Tomb Of The Capulets.

Hypocrisy Can Afford To Be Magnificent In Its Promises, For Never Intending To Go Beyond Promise, It Costs Nothing.

Broken Promises

As Mankind Becomes More Enlightened To Know Their Real Interests, They Will Esteem The Value Of Agriculture; They Will Find It In Their Natural--their Destined Occupation.

A State Without The Means Of Some Change Is Without The Means Of Its Conservation.

Society Is Indeed A Contract. ... It Is A Partnership In All Science; A Partnership In All Art; A Partnership In Every Virtue, And In All Perfection.

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.

I Cannot Conceive How Any Man Can Have Brought Himself To That Pitch Of Presumption, To Consider His Country As Nothing But Carte Blanche, Upon Which He May Scribble Whatever He Pleases.

Teach Me, O Lark! With Thee To Greatly Rise, To Exalt My Soul And Lift It To The Skies.

True Humility-the Basis Of The Christian System-is The Low But Deep And Firm Foundation Of All Virtues.

All That Is Necessary For Evil To Succeed Is For Good Men To Do Nothing As They Must If They Believe They Can Do Nothing. There Is Nothing Worse Because The Council Of Despair Is Declaration Of Irresponsibility; It Is Pilate Washing His Hands.

A Nation Is Not Conquered Which Is Perpetually To Be Conquered.

Nothing Turns Out To Be So Oppressive And Unjust As A Feeble Government.

Oppressive Governments

The True Danger Is When Liberty Is Nibbled Away, For Expedience, And By Parts.

Dangers By Being Despised Grow Great.

Mere Parsimony Is Not Economy. Expense, And Great Expense, May Be An Essential Part In True Economy.

Hypocrisy Is No Cheap Vice; Nor Can Our Natural Temper Be Masked For Many Years Together.

The Most Favourable Laws Can Do Very Little Towards The Happiness Of People When The Disposition Of The Ruling Power Is Adverse To Them.

The Method Of Teaching Which Approaches Most Nearly To The Method Of Investigation Is Incomparably The Best.

The Power Of Perpetuating Our Property In Our Families Is One Of The Most Valuable And Interesting Circumstances Belonging To It, And That Which Tends Most To The Perpetuation Of Society Itself. It Makes Our Weakness Subservient To Our Virtue; It Grafts Benevolence Even Upon Avarice. The Possession Of Family Wealth And Of The Distinction Which Attends Hereditary Possessions (as Most Concerned In It,) Are The Natural Securities For This Transmission.

Contempt Is Not A Thing To Be Despised. It May Be Borne With A Calm And Equal Mind, But No Man, By Lifting His Head High, Can Pretend That He Does Not Perceive The Scorns That Are Poured Down On Him From Above.

Writers, Especially When They Act In A Body And With One Direction, Have Great Influence On The Public Mind.

In A Free Country Every Man Thinks He Has A Concern In All Public Matters,--that He Has A Right To Form And A Right To Deliver An Opinion On Them. This It Is That Fills Countries With Men Of Ability In All Stations.

I Do Not Know How To Wish Success To Those Whose Victory Is To Separate From Us A Large And Noble Part Of Our Empire. Still Less Do I Wish Success To Injustice, Oppression And Absurdity.

Facts Are To The Mind What Food Is To The Body.

In Such A Strait The Wisest May Well Be Perplexed And The Boldest Staggered.

Some Degree Of Novelty Must Be One Of The Materials In Almost Every Instrument Which Works Upon The Mind; And Curiosity Blends Itself, More Or Less, With All Our Pleasures.

Those Who Have Been Once Intoxicated With Power, And Have Derived Any Kind Of Emolument From It, Even Though But For One Year, Never Can Willingly Abandon It. They May Be Distressed In The Midst Of All Their Power; But They Will Never Look To Anything But Power For Their Relief.

Fellowship In Treason Is A Bad Ground Of Confidence.

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.

Men Are As Much Blinded By The Extremes Of Misery As By The Extremes Of Prosperity.

Nobody Made A Greater Mistake Than He Who Did Nothing Because He Could Do Only A Little.

A Kind Providence Has Placed In Our Breasts A Hatred Of The Unjust And Cruel, In Order That We May Preserve Ourselves From Cruelty And Injustice. They Who Bear Cruelty, Are Accomplices In It. The Pretended Gentleness Which Excludes That Charitable Rancour, Produces An Indifference Which Is Half An Approbation. They Never Will Love Where They Ought To Love, Who Do Not Hate Where They Ought To Hate.

Sallust Is Indisputably One Of The Best Historians Among The Romans, Both For The Purity Of His Language And The Elegance Of His Style.

Society Cannot Exist Unless A Controlling Power Upon Will And Appetite Be Placed Somewhere, And The Less Of It There Is Within, The More There Must Be Without.

Power, In Whatever Hands, Is Rarely Guilty Of Too Strict Limitations On Itself.

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.

Because Half A Dozen Grasshoppers Under A Fern Make The Field Ring With Their Importunate Chink, Whilst Thousands Of Great Cattle, Reposed Beneath The Shadow Of The British Oak, Chew The Cud And Are Silent, Pray, To Not Imagine That Those Who Make The Noise Are The Only Inhabitants Of The Field; That, Of Course, They Are Many In Number; Or That, After All, They Are Other Than The Little, Shriveled, Meagre, Hopping, Though Loud And Troublesome Insects Of The Hour.

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.

Wars Are Just To Those To Whom They Are Necessary.

The Superfluities Of A Rich Nation Furnish A Better Object Of Trade Than The Necessities Of A Poor One. It Is The Interest Of The Commercial World That Wealth Should Be Found Everywhere.

When You Find Me Attempting To Break Into Your House To Take Your Plate, Under Any Pretence Whatsoever, But Most Of All Under Pretence Of Purity Of Religion And Christian Charity Shoot Me For A Robber And A Hypocrite, As In That Case I Shall Certainly Be.

Religion Is The Basis Of Civil Society, And The Source Of All Good And Of All Comfort.

In Effect, To Follow, Not To Force The Public Inclination; To Give A Direction, A Form, A Technical Dress, And A Specific Sanction, To The General Sense Of The Community, Is The True End Of Legislature.

The More Accurately We Search Into The Human Mind, The Stronger Traces We Everywhere Find Of His Wisdom Who Made It.

It Is Ordained In The Eternal Constitution Of Things, That Men Of Intemperate Minds Cannot Be Free. Their Passions Forge Their Fetters.

Man Is By His Constitution A Religious Animal.

Those Who Attempt To Level Never Equalize

Men Have No Right To What Is Not Reasonable, And To What Is Not For Their Benefit.

Liberty, Without Wisdom, Is License.

Evils We Have Had Continually Calling For Reformation, And Reformations More Grievous Than Any Evils.

All The Forces Of Darkness Need To Succeed ... Is For The People To Do Nothing.

Magnificence Is Likewise A Source Of The Sublime. A Great Profusion Of Things Which Are Splendid Or Valuable In Themselves Is Magnificent. The Starry Heaven, Though It Occurs So Very Frequently To Our View, Never Fails To Excite An Idea Of Grandeur.

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."

The Credulity Of Dupes Is As Inexhaustible As The Invention Of Knaves.

The Science Of Constructing A Commonwealth, Or Renovating It, Or Reforming It, Is, Like Every Other Experimental Science, Not To Be Taught A Priori. Nor Is It A Short Experience That Can Instruct Us In That Practical Science, Because The Real Effects Of Moral Causes Are Not Always Immediate.

Applaud Us When We Run, Console Us When We Fall, Cheer Us When We Recover.

A Nation Without Means Of Reform Is Without Means Of Survival.

I Cannot Stand Forward, And Give Praise Or Blame To Any Thing Which Relates To Human Actions, And Human Concerns, On A Simple View Of The Subject As It Stands Stripped Of Every Relation, In All The Nakedness And Solitude Of Metaphysical Abstraction. Circumstances (which With Some Gentlemen Pass For Nothing) Give In Reality To Every Political Principle Its Distinguishing Colour, And Discriminating Effect. The Circumstances Are What Render Every Civil And Political Scheme Beneficial Or Noxious To Mankind.

Where Two Motives, Neither Of Them Perfectly Justifiable, May Be Assigned, The Worst Has The Chance Of Being Preferred.

The Power Of Discretionary Disqualification By One Law Of Parliament, And The Necessity Of Paying Every Debt Of The Civil List By Another Law Of Parliament, If Suffered To Pass Unnoticed, Must Establish Such A Fund Of Rewards And Terrors As Will Make Parliament The Best Appendage And Support Of Arbitrary Power That Ever Was Invented By The Wit Of Man.

Law And Arbitrary Power Are At Eternal Enmity.

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.

There Are Cases In Which A Man Would Be Ashamed Not To Have Been Imposed Upon. There Is A Confidence Necessary To Human Intercourse, And Without Which Men Are Often More Injured By Their Own Suspicions Than They Would Be By The Perfidy Of Others.

True Religion Is The Foundation Of Society. When That Is Once Shaken By Contempt, The Whole Fabric Cannot Be Stable Nor Lasting.

The True Way To Mourn The Dead Is To Take Care Of The Living Who Belong To Them.

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.

Congratulations

Kings Will Be Tyrants From Policy, When Subjects Are Rebels From Principle.

The Marketplace Obliges Men, Whether They Will Or Not, In Pursuing Their Own Selfish Interests, To Connect The General Good With Their Own Individual Success.

Vice Itself Lost Half Its Evil, By Losing All Its Grossness.

Expense, And Great Expense, May Be An Essential Part In True Economy. If Parsimony Were To Be Considered As One Of The Kinds Of That Virtue, There Is, However, Another And A Higher Economy. Economy Is A Distinctive Virtue, And Consists Not In Saving, But In Selection.

Though Ugliness Be The Opposite Of Beauty, It Is Not The Opposite To Proportion And Fitness; For It Is Possible That A Thing May Be Very Ugly With Any Proportions, And With A Perfect Fitness For Any Use.

Education Is A Nation's Cheapest Defence

He Only Deserves To Be Remembered By Posterity Who Treasures Up And Preserves The History Of His Ancestors.

A Disposition To Preserve, And An Ability To Improve, Taken Together, Would Be My Standard Of A Statesman.

All Virtue Which Is Impracticable Is Spurious.

Obstinacy, Sir, Is Certainly A Great Vice; And In The Changeful State Of Political Affairs It Is Frequently The Cause Of Great Mischief. It Happens, However, Very Unfortunately, That Almost The Whole Line Of The Great And Masculine Virtues--constancy, Gravity, Magnanimity, Fortitude, Fidelity, And Firmness--are Closely Allied To This Disagreeable Quality, Of Which You Have So Just An Abhorrence; And In Their Excess All These Virtues Very Easily Fall Into It.

It Is The Nature Of All Greatness Not To Be Exact.

No Men Can Act With Effect Who Do Not Act In Concert; No Men Can Act In Concert Who Do Not Act With Confidence; No Men Can Act With Confidence Who Are Not Bound Together With Common Opinions, Common Affections, And Common Interests.

I Have Been Told By An Eminent Bookseller, That In No Branch Of His Business , After Tracts Of Popular Devotion, Were So Many Books As Those On The Law Exported To The Plantations .

I Cannot Help Concurring With The Opinion That An Absolute Democracy, No More Than Absolute Monarchy, Is To Be Reckoned Among The Legitimate Forms Of Government.

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.

I Venture To Say No War Can Be Long Carried On Against The Will Of The People.

You Will Not Think It Unnatural That Those Who Have An Object Depending, Which Strongly Engages Their Hopes And Fears, Should Be Somewhat Inclining To Superstition.

Public Calamity Is A Mighty Leveller.

Futurity Is The Great Concern Of Mankind.

No Man Can Mortgage His Injustice As A Pawn For His Fidelity.

I Am Not One Of Those Who Think That The People Are Never In The Wrong. They Have Been So, Frequently And Outrageously, Both In Other Countries And In This. But I Do Say That In All Disputes Between Them And Their Rulers, The Presumption Is At Least Upon A Par In Favour Of The People.

A Speculative Despair Is Unpardonable Where It Our Duty To Act.

Taxing Is An Easy Business. Any Projector Can Contrive New Impositions; Any Bungler Can Add To The Old; But Is It Altogether Wise To Have No Other Bounds To Your Impositions Than The Patience Of Those Who Are To Bear Them?

Parliament Is A Deliberate Assembly Of One Nation, With One Interest, That Of The Whole; Where, Not Local Purpose, Not Local Prejudices Ought To Guide But The General Good, Resulting From The General Reason Of The Whole.

If We Command Our Wealth, We Shall Be Rich And Free; If Our Wealth Commands Us, We Are Poor Indeed.

Greatest Wealth

If The Prudence Of Reserve And Decorum Dictates Silence In Some Circumstances, In Others Prudence Of A Higher Order May Justify Us In Speaking Our Thoughts.

If You Can Be Well Without Health, You May Be Happy Without Virtue.

The Unbought Grace Of Life, The Cheap Defence Of Nations, The Nurse Of Manly Sentiment And Heroic Enterprise Isgone! It Isgone, That Sensibility Of Principle, That Chastity Of Honour, Which Felt A Stain Like A Wound, Which Ennobled Whatever It Touched, And Under Which Vice Itself Lost Half Its Evil, By Losing All Its Grossness.

Man Is An Animal That Cooks His Victuals.

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.

War Never Leaves Where It Found A Nation.

The Moment You Abate Anything From The Full Rights Of Men To Each Govern Himself, And Suffer Any Artificial Positive Limitation Upon Those Rights, From That Moment The Whole Organization Of Government Becomes A Consideration Of Convenience.

Gambling Is A Principle Inherent In Human Nature.

It Is In The Relaxation Of Security; It Is In The Expansion Of Prosperity; It Is In The Hour Of Dilatation Of The Heart, And Of Its Softening Into Festivity And Pleasure, That The Real Character Of Men Is Discerned.

To Make Us Love Our Country, Our Country Ought To Be Lovely.

Nothing Less Will Content Me, Than Wholeamerica.

It Is The Interest Of The Commercial World That Wealth Should Be Found Everywhere.

Flattery Is No More Than What Raises In A Man's Mind An Idea Of A Preference Which He Has Not.

Our Patience Will Achieve More Than Our Force.

All Writers On The Science Of Policy Are Agreed, And They Agree With Experience, That All Governments Must Frequently Infringe The Rules Of Justice To Support Themselves; That Truth Must Give Way To Dissimulation, Honesty To Convenience, And Humanity Itself To The Reigning Of Interest. The Whole Of This Mystery Of Iniquity Is Called The Reason Of State.

The Perfection Of Conversation Is Not To Play A Regular Sonata, But, Like The Aeolian Harp, To Await The Inspiration Of The Passing Breeze.

Silence Is Golden But When It Threatens Your Freedom It's Yellow.

Instead Of Casting Away All Our Old Prejudices, We Cherish Them To A Very Considerable Degree, And, To Take More Shame To Ourselves, We Cherish Them Because They Are Prejudices; And The Longer They Have Lasted And The More Generally They Have Prevailed, The More We Cherish Them. We Are Afraid To Put Men To Live And Trade Each On His Own Private Stock Of Reason; Because We Suspect That This Stock In Each Man Is Small, And That The Individuals Would Do Better To Avail Themselves Of The General Bank And Capital Of Nations And Of Ages.

In History, A Great Volume Is Unrolled For Our Instruction, Drawing The Materials Of Future Wisdom From The Past Errors And Infirmities Of Mankind.

Religious Persecution May Shield Itself Under The Guise Of A Mistaken And Over-zealous Piety.

Taxing Is An Easy Business. Any Projector Can Contrive New Compositions, Any Bungler Can Add To The Old.

Those Who Don't Know History Are Destined To Repeat It.

A Good Parson Once Said That Where Mystery Begins Religion Ends. Cannot I Say, As Truly At Least, Of Human Laws, That Where Mystery Begins Justice Ends?

The Starry Heaven, Though It Occurs So Very Frequently To Our View, Never Fails To Excite An Idea Of Grandeur. This Cannot Be Owing To The Stars Themselves, Separately Considered. The Number Is Certainly The Cause. The Apparent Disorder Augments The Grandeur, For The Appearance Of Care Is Highly Contrary To Our Ideas Of Magnificence. Besides, The Stars Lie In Such Apparent Confusion, As Makes It Impossible On Ordinary Occasions To Reckon Them. This Gives Them The Advantage Of A Sort Of Infinity.

Despots Govern By Terror. They Know That He Who Fears God Fears Nothing Else; And Therefore They Eradicate From The Mind, Through Their Voltaire, Their Helvetius, And The Rest Of That Infamous Gang, That Only Sort Of Fear Which Generates True Courage.

Contempt Is Not A Thing To Be Despised.

Good Company, Lively Conversation, And The Endearments Of Friendship Fill The Mind With Great Pleasure.

Somebody Has Said, That A King May Make A Nobleman But He Cannot Make A Gentleman.

A Populace Never Rebels From Passion For Attack, But From Impatience Of Suffering.

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.

An Extreme Rigor Is Sure To Arm Everything Against It.

It Is Not What A Lawyer Tells Me I May Do; But What Humanity, Reason, And Justice Tell Me I Ought To Do.

Beauty Is The Promise Of Happiness.

A Great Empire And Little Minds Go Ill Together.

There Is A Sort Of Enthusiasm In All Projectors, Absolutely Necessary For Their Affairs, Which Makes Them Proof Against The Most Fatiguing Delays, The Most Mortifying Disappointments, The Most Shocking Insults; And, What Is Severer Than All, The Presumptuous Judgement Of The Ignorant Upon Their Designs.

If Any Ask Me What A Free Government Is, I Answer, That, For Any Practical Purpose, It Is What The People Think So,and That They, And Not I, Are The Natural, Lawful, And Competent Judges Of This Matter.

A Perfect Democracy Is Therefore The Most Shameless Thing In The World.

Custom Reconciles Us To Everything.

An Appearance Of Delicacy, And Even Fragility, Is Almost Essential To Beauty.

History Is A Pact Between The Dead, The Living, And The Yet Unborn.

Dogs Are Indeed The Most Social, Affectionate, And Amiable Animals Of The Whole Brute Creation.

No Government Ought To Exist For The Purpose Of Checking The Prosperity Of Its People Or To Allow Such A Principle In Its Policy.

The Religion Most Prevalent In Our Northern Colonies Is A Refinement On The Principles Of Resistance: It Is The Dissidence Of Dissent, And The Protestantism Of The Protestant Religion.

The Nature Of Things Is, I Admit, A Sturdy Adversary.

Delusion And Weakness Produce Not One Mischief The Less, Because They Are Universal.

Nobility Is A Graceful Ornament To The Civil Order. It Is The Corinthian Capital Of Polished Society.

There Is A Boundary To Men's Passions When They Act From Feelings; But None When They Are Under The Influence Of Imagination.

Passion For Fame: A Passion Which Is The Instinct Of All Great Souls.

Too Much Idleness, I Have Observed, Fills Up A Man's Time More Completely And Leaves Him Less His Own Master, Than Any Sort Of Employment Whatsoever

An Entire Life Of Solitude Contradicts The Purpose Of Our Being, Since Death Itself Is Scarcely An Idea Of More Terror.

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.

The Men Of England,- The Men, I Mean, Of Light And Leading In England.

Whatever Each Man Can Separately Do, Without Trespassing Upon Others, He Has A Right To Do For Himself; And He Has A Right To A Fair Portion Of All Which Society, With All It Combinations Of Skill And Force, Can Do In His Favor. In This Partnership All Men Have Equal Rights; But Not To Equal Things.

In This Choice Of Inheritance We Have Given To Our Frame Of Polity The Image Of A Relation In Blood; Binding Up The Constitution Of Our Country With Our Dearest Domestic Ties; Adopting Our Fundamental Laws Into The Bosom Of Our Family Affections; Keeping Inseparable And Cherishing With The Warmth Of All Their Combined And Mutually Reflected Charities, Our State, Our Hearths, Our Sepulchres, And Our Altars.

Not Men But Measures A Sort Of Charm By Which Many People Get Loose From Every Honorable Engagement.

The Great Must Submit To The Dominion Of Prudence And Of Virtue, Or None Will Long Submit To The Dominion Of The Great.

Prudence Is A Quality Incompatible With Vice, And Can Never Be Effectively Enlisted In Its Cause.

What Shadows We Are, And What Shadows We Pursue!

It Is By Sympathy We Enter Into The Concerns Of Others, That We Are Moved As They Are Moved, And Are Never Suffered To Be Indifferent Spectators Of Almost Anything Which Men Can Do Or Suffer. For Sympathy May Be Considered As A Sort Of Substitution, By Which We Are Put Into The Place Of Another Man, And Affected In Many Respects As He Is Affected.

Toleration Is Good For All, Or It Is Good For None.

There Is A Courageous Wisdom; There Is Also A False, Reptile Prudence, The Result Not Of Caution But Of Fear.

When Ancient Opinions And Rules Of Life Are Taken Away, The Loss Cannot Possibly Be Estimated. From That Moment, We Have No Compass To Govern Us, Nor Can We Know Distinctly To What Port To Steer.

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.

Superstition Is The Religion Of Feeble Minds.

Tyrants Seldom Want Pretexts.

The Blood Of Man Should Never Be Shed But To Redeem The Blood Of Man. It Is Well Shed For Our Family, For Our Friends, For Our God, For Our Country, For Our Kind. The Rest Is Vanity; The Rest Is Crime.

No Passion So Effectually Robs The Mind Of All Its Powers Of Acting And Reasoning As Fear.

By This Unprincipled Facility Of Changing The State As Often, And As Much, And In As Many Ways As There Are Floating Fancies Or Fashions, The Whole Chain And Continuity Of The Commonwealth Would Be Broken. No One Generation Could Link With The Other. Men Would Become Little Better Than The Flies Of A Summer.

It Is The Love Of The People; It Is Their Attachment To Their Government, From The Sense Of The Deep Stake They Have In Such A Glorious Institution, Which Gives You Your Army 168 And Your Navy, And Infuses Into Both That Liberal Obedience, Without Which Your Army Would Be A Base Rabble, And Your Navy Nothing But Rotten Timber.

Flattery Corrupts Both The Receiver And The Giver; And Adulation Is Not Of More Service To The People Than To Kings.

The Great Difference Between The Real Leader And The Pretender Is That The One Sees Into The Future, While The Other Regards Only The Present; The One Lives By The Day, And Acts Upon Expediency; The Other Acts On Enduring Principles And For The Immortality.

The Nerve That Never Relaxes, The Eye That Never Blanches, The Thought That Never Wanders, The Purpose That Never Wavers - These Are The Masters Of Victory.

This Sort Of People Are So Taken Up With Their Theories About The Rights Of Man That They Have Totally Forgotten His Nature.

By Gnawing Through A Dike, Even A Rat May Drown A Nation.

In A Democracy, The Majority Of The Citizens Is Capable Of Exercising The Most Cruel Oppressions Upon The Minority.

The Great Error Of Our Nature Is, Not To Know Where To Stop, Not To Be Satisfied With Any Reasonable Acquirement; Not To Compound With Our Condition; But To Lose All We Have Gained By An Insatiable Pursuit After More.

I Have Not Yet Lost A Feeling Of Wonder, And Of Delight, That The Delicate Motion Should Reside In All The Things Around Us, Revealing Itself Only To Him Who Looks For It.

It Is The Nature Of Tyranny And Rapacity Never To Learn Moderation From The Ill-success Of First Oppressions; On The Contrary, All Oppressors, All Men Thinking Highly Of The Methods Dictated By Their Nature, Attribute The Frustration Of Their Desires To The Want Of Sufficient Rigor.

The Greatest Crimes Do Not Arise From A Want Of Feeling For Others But From An Over-sensibilit Y For Ourselves And An Over-indulgence To Our Own Desires

It Ought To Be The Happiness And Glory Of A Representative To Live In The Strictest Union, The Closest Correspondence, And The Most Unreserved Communication With His Constituents. Their Wishes Ought To Have Great Weight With Him; Their Opinion, High Respect; Their Business, Unremitted Attention.

You Had That Action And Counteraction Which, In The Natural And In The Political World, From The Reciprocal Struggle Of Discordant Powers Draws Out The Harmony Of The Universe.

A People Who Are Still, As It Were, But In The Gristle, And Not Yet Hardened Into The Bone Of Manhood.

Laws, Like Houses, Lean On One Another.

There Never Was A Bad Man That Had Ability For Good Service.

The Most Important Of All Revolutions, A Revolution In Sentiments, Manners And Moral Opinions.

They Never Will Love Where They Ought To Love, Who Do Not Hate Where They Ought To Hate.

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.

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.

[slavery] Is A Weed That Grows In Every Soil.

The Tyranny Of A Multitude Is A Multiplied Tyranny.

The Pride Of Men Will Not Often Suffer Reason To Have Scope Until It Can Be No Longer Of Service.

Poetry Is The Art Of Substantiating Shadows, And Of Lending Existence To Nothing.

Among Precautions Against Ambition, It May Not Be Amiss To Take Precautions Against Our Own. I Must Fairly Say, I Dread Our Own Power And Our Own Ambition: I Dread Our Being Too Much Dreaded.

I Do Not Hesitate To Say That The Road To Eminence And Power, From An Obscure Condition, Ought Not To Be Made Too Easy, Nor A Thing Too Much Of Course. If Rare Merit Be The Rarest Of All Things, It Ought To Pass Through Some Sort Of Probation. The Temple Of Honor Ought To Be Seated On An Eminence. If It Be Open Through Virtue, Let It Be Remembered, Too, That Virtue Is Never Tried But By Some Difficulty And Some Struggle.

Society Is Indeed A Contract. Subordinate Contracts For Objects Of Mere Occasional Interest May Be Dissolved At Pleasure - But The State Ought Not To Be Considered As Nothing Better Than A Partnership Agreement In A Trade Of Pepper And Coffee, Calico, Or Tobacco, Or Some Other Such Low Concern, To Be Taken Up For A Little Temporary Interest, And To Be Dissolved By The Fancy Of The Parties. It Is To Be Looked On With Other Reverence, Because It Is Not A Partnership In Things Subservient Only To The Gross Animal Existence Of A Temporary And Perishable Nature.

Whatever Is Fitted In Any Sort To Excite The Ideas Of Pain And Danger, That Is To Say, Whatever Is In Any Sort Terrible, Or Is Conversant About Terrible Objects, Or Operates In A Manner Analogous To Terror, Is A Source Of The Sublime; That Is, It Is Productive Of The Strongest Emotion Which The Mind Is Capable Of Feeling... When Danger Or Pain Press Too Nearly, They Are Incapable Of Giving Any Delight, And Are Simply Terrible; But At Certain Distances, And With Certain Modifications, They May Be, And They Are, Delightful, As We Every Day Experience.

Frugality Is Founded On The Principal That All Riches Have Limits.

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.

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