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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.

-Edmund Burke

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It Looks To Me

Edmund Burke

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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.

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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. As The Ends Of Such A Partnership Cannot Be Obtained In Many Generations, It Becomes A Partnership Not Only Between Those Who Are Living, But Between Those Who Are Living, Those Who Are Dead, And Those Who Are To Be Born.

Applause Is The Spur Of Noble Minds, The End And Aim Of Weak Ones.

The Moment That Government Appears At Market, The Principles Of The Market Will Be Subverted.

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

The Whole Compass Of The Language Is Tried To Find Sinonimies [synonyms] And Circumlocutions For Massacres And Murder. Things Never Called By Their Common Names. Massacre Is Sometimes Called Agitation, Sometimes Effervescence, Sometimes Excess Sometimes Too Continued An Exercise Of Revolutionary Power.

You Can Never Plan The Future By The Past.

If We Owned The Property, We Will Be Free And Prosperous. If So They Regain Control, We Will Become Poor

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.

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

I Do Not Know The Method Of Drawing Up An Indictment Against A Whole People.

There Are Three Estates In Parliament But In The Reporters' Gallery Yonder There Sits A Fourth Estate More Important Far Than They All. It Is Not A Figure Of Speech Or Witty Saying, It Is A Literal Fact, Very Momentous To Us In These Times.

Man Is By His Constitution A Religious Animal.

Beauty Is The Promise Of Happiness.

The Same Sun Which Gilds All Nature, And Exhilarates The Whole Creation, Does Not Shine Upon Disappointed Ambition.

The Body Of All True Religion Consists, To Be Sure, In Obedience To The Will Of The Sovereign Of The World, In A Confidence In His Declarations, And In Imitation Of His Perfections.

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

What Shadows We Are, And What Shadows We Pursue!

Never, No Never, Did Nature Say One Thing, And Wisdom Another.

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 .

We Must Not Always Judge Of The Generality Of The Opinion By The Noise Of The Acclamation.

In Doing Good, We Are Generally Cold, And Languid, And Sluggish; And Of All Things Afraid Of Being Too Much In The Right. But Theworks Of Malice And Injustice Are Quite In Another Style. They Are Finished With A Bold, Masterly Hand; Touched As They Are With The Spirit Of Those Vehement Passions That Call Forth All Our Energies, Whenever We Oppress And Persecute.

He That Accuses All Mankind Of Corruption Ought To Remember That He Is Sure To Convict Only One.

Nothing Is So Rash As Fear; And The Counsels Of Pusillanimity Very Rarely Put Off, Whilst They Are Always Sure To Aggravate, The Evils From Which They Would Fly.

Law And Arbitrary Power Are At Eternal Enmity.

When Bad Men Combine, The Good Must Associate; Else They Will Fall One By One, An Unpitied Sacrifice In A Contemptible Struggle.

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

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.

The People Never Give Up Their Liberties But Under Some Delusion.

Of This Stamp Is The Cant Of, Not Men, But Measures.

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.

Nothing, Indeed, But The Possession Of Some Power Can With Any Certainty Discover What At The Bottom Is The True Character Of Any Man.

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.

Humanity Cannot Be Degraded By Humiliation.

Evil Prevails When Good Men Fail To Act.

All Men Have Equal Rights, But Not To Equal Things.

Liberty Does Not Exist In The Absence Of Morality.

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

Religion Is Essentially The Art And The Theory Of The Remaking Of Man. Man Is Not A Finished Creation.

Those Who Have Been Intoxicated With Power... Can Never Willingly Abandon It.

Manners Are Of More Importance Than Laws. Manners Are What Vex Or Soothe, Corrupt Or Purify, Exalt Or Debase, Barbarize Or Refine Us, By A Constant, Steady, Uniform, Insensible Operation, Like That Of The Air We Breathe.

To Execute Laws Is A Royal Office; To Execute Orders Is Not To Be A King. However, A Political Executive Magistracy, Though Merely Such, Is A Great Trust.

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.

In The Weakness Of One Kind Of Authority, And In The Fluctuation Of All, The Officers Of An Army Will Remain For Some Time Mutinous And Full Of Faction, Until Some Popular General, Who Understands The Art Of Conciliating The Soldiery, And Who Possesses The True Spirit Of Command, Shall Draw The Eyes Of All Men Upon Himself. Armies Will Obey Him On His Personal Account. There Is No Other Way Of Securing Military Obedience In This State Of Things.

Evil Succeeds When Good Men Do Nothing

I Take Toleration To Be A Part Of Religion. I Do Not Know Which I Would Sacrifice; I Would Keep Them Both: It Is Not Necessary That I Should Sacrifice Either.

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

Liberty, Without Wisdom, Is License.

People Crushed By Law, Have No Hopes But From Power. If Laws Are Their Enemies, They Will Be Enemies To Laws; And Those Who Have Much Hope And Nothing To Lose, Will Always Be Dangerous.

Great Men Are Never Sufficiently Shown But In Struggles.

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.

We Are In A War Of A Peculiar Nature. It Is Not With An Ordinary Community, Which Is Hostile Or Friendly As Passion Or As Interest May Veer About: Not With A State Which Makes War Through Wantonness, And Abandons It Through Lassitude. We Are At War With A System, Which By Its Essence, Is Inimical To All Other Governments, And Which Makes Peace Or War, As Peace And War May Best Contribute To Their Subversion. It Is With An Armed Doctrine That We Are At War. It Has, By Its Essence, A Faction Of Opinion, And Of Interest, And Of Enthusiasm, In Every Country.

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

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.

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

It Is Hard To Say Whether Doctors Of Law Or Divinity Have Made The Greater Advances In The Lucrative Business Of Mystery.

The Truly Sublime Is Always Easy, And Always Natural.

Man Is By His Constitution A Religious Animal; Atheism Is Against Not Only Our Reason, But Our Instincts.

Education Is A Nation's Cheapest Defence

Beauty In Distress Is Much The Most Affecting Beauty.

Make The Revolution A Parent Of Settlement, And Not A Nursery Of Future Revolutions.

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

No Sound Ought To Be Heard In The Church But The Healing Voice Of Christian Charity.

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

One Source Of The Sublime Is Infinity.

Nnothing Tends More To The Corruption Of Science Than To Suffer It To Stagnate. These Waters Must Be Troubled, Before They Can Exert Their Virtues.

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

I Decline The Election. It Has Ever Been My Rule Through Life, To Observe A Proportion Between My Efforts And My Objects. I Have Never Been Remarkable For A Bold, Active, And Sanguine Pursuit Of Advantages That Are Personal To Myself.

In General The Languages Of Most Unpolished People Have A Great Force And Energy Of Expression; And This Is But Natural. Uncultivated People Are But Ordinary Observers Of Things, And Not Critical In Distinguishing Them; But, For That Reason, They Admire More, And Are More Affected With What They See, And Therefore Express Themselves In A Warmer And More Passionate Manner.

Jacobinism Is The Revolt Of The Enterprising Talents Of A Country Against Its Property.

Men Love To Hear Of Their Power, But Have An Extreme Disrelish To Be Told Their Duty.

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

War Never Leaves Where It Found A Nation.

I Have Never Yet Seen Any Plan Which Has Not Been Mended By The Observations Of Those Who Were Much Inferior In Understanding To The Person Who Took The Lead In The Business.

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

By Looking Into Physical Causes Our Minds Are Opened And Enlarged; And In This Pursuit, Whether We Take Or Whether We Lose The Game, The Chase Is Certainly Of Service.

Over-taxation Cost England Her Colonies Of North America.

To Speak Of Atrocious Crime In Mild Language Is Treason To Virtue.

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.

To Prove That The Americans Ought Not To Be Free, We Are Obliged To Deprecate The Value Of Freedom Itself.

The Very Name Of A Politician, A Statesman, Is Sure To Cause Terror And Hatred; It Has Always Connected With It The Ideas Of Treachery, Cruelty, Fraud, And Tyranny.

Parliament Is Not A Congress Of Ambassadors From Different And Hostile Interests; Which Interests Each Must Maintain, As An Agent And Advocate, Against Other Agents And Advocates; But Parliament Is A Deliberative Assembly Of One Nation, With One Interest, That Of The Whole; Where, Not Local Purposes, Not Local Prejudices Ought To Guide, But The General Good, Resulting From The General Reason Of The Whole. You Choose A Member Indeed; But When You Have Chosen Him, He Is Not A Member Of Bristol, But He Is A Member Of Parliament.

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.

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

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

God Has Sometimes Converted Wickedness Into Madness; And It Is To The Credit Of Human Reason That Men Who Are Not In Some Degree Mad Are Never Capable Of Being In The Highest Degree Wicked.

Laws, Like Houses, Lean On One Another.

Water And Oil, Simply Considered, Are Capable Of Giving Some Pleasure To The Taste. Water, When Simple, Is Insipid, Inodorous, Colorless, And Smooth; It Is Found, When Not Cold, To Be A Great Resolver Of Spasms, And Lubricator Of The Fibres; This Power It Probably Owes To Its Smoothness.

Nothing Ought To Be More Weighed Than The Nature Of Books Recommended By Public Authority. So Recommended, They Soon Form The Character Of The Age.

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

Curiosity Is The Most Superficial Of All The Affections; It Changes Its Object Perpetually; It Has An Appetite Which Is Very Sharp, But Very Easily Satisfied, And It Has Always An Appearance Of Giddiness, Restlessness And Anxiety.

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

Our Manners, Our Civilization, And All The Good Things Connected With Manners And Civilization, Have, In This European World Of Ours, Depended For Ages Upon Two Principles: I Mean The Spirit Of A Gentleman, And The Spirit Of Religion.

The Parties Are The Gamesters; But Government Keeps The Table, And Is Sure To Be The Winner In The End.

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

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.

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.

It Is Better To Cherish Virtue And Humanity, By Leaving Much To Free Will, Even With Some Loss Of The Object , Than To Attempt To Make Men Mere Machines And Instruments Of Political Benevolence. The World On The Whole Will Gain By A Liberty, Without Which Virtue Cannot Exist.

Spain: A Whale Stranded Upon The Coast Of Europe.

It Has All The Contortions Of The Sibyl Without The Inspiration.

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.

I Do Ride Contend Against The Advantages Of Distrust. In The World We Live In, It Is But Too Necessary. Some Of Old Called It The Very Sinews Of Discretion.

Adversity Is A Severe Instructor, Set Over Us By One Who Knows Us Better Than We Do Ourselves.

My Good Friends, While I Do Most Earnestly Recommend You To Take Care Of Your Health And Safety, As Things Most Precious To Us, I Would Not Have That Care Degenerate Into An Effeminate And Over-curious Attention, Which Is Always Disgraceful To A Man's Self, And Often Troublesome To Others.

All Virtue Which Is Impracticable Is Spurious.

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

One That Confounds Good And Evil Is An Enemy To Good.

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.

The Only Kind Of Sublimity Which A Painter Or Sculptor Should Aim At Is To Express By Certain Proportions And Positions Of Limbs And Features That Strength And Dignity Of Mind, And Vigor And Activity Of Body, Which Enables Men To Conceive And Execute Great Actions.

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

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

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

Religion Is For The Man In Humble Life, And To Raise His Nature, And To Put Him In Mind Of A State In Which The Privileges Of Opulence Will Cease, When He Will Be Equal By Nature, And May Be More Than Equal By Virtue.

Nothing So Effectually Deadens The Taste Of The Sublime As That Which Is Light And Radiant.

Religion, To Have Any Force Upon Men's Understandings,--indeed, To Exist At All,--must Be Supposed Paramount To Law, And Independent For Its Substance Upon Any Human Institution, Else It Would Be The Absurdest Thing In The World,--an Acknowledged Cheat.

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.

The Tyranny Of A Multitude Is A Multiplied Tyranny.

Politics And The Pulpit Are Terms That Have Little Agreement. No Sound Ought To Be Heard In The Church But The Healing Voice Of Christian Charity. The Cause Of Civil Liberty And Civil Government Gains As Little As That Of Religion By This Confusion Of Duties. Those Who Quit Their Proper Character To Assume What Does Not Belong To Them Are, For The Greater Part, Ignorant Both Of The Character They Leave And Of The Character They Assume.

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

Wars Are Just To Those To Whom They Are Necessary.

The Fate Of Good Men Who Refuse To Become Involved In Politics Is To Be Ruled By Evil Men.

I Am Convinced That We Have A Degree Of Delight, And That No Small One, In The Real Misfortunes And Pain Of Others

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

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.

A Definition May Be Very Exact, And Yet Go But A Very Little Way Towards Informing Us Of The Nature Of The Thing Defined.

Those Who Quit Their Proper Character To Assume What Does Not Belong To Them Are, For The Greater Part, Ignorant Both Of The Character They Leave And Of The Character They Assume.

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

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.

There Ought To Be System Of Manners In Every Nation Which A Well-formed Mind Would Be Disposed To Relish. To Make Us Love Our Country, Our Country Ought To Be Lovely.

Fiction Lags After Truth, Invention Is Unfruitful, And Imagination Cold And Barren.

Man Acts From Adequate Motives Relative To His Interest, And Not On Metaphysical Speculations.

There Is America, Which At This Day Serves For Little More Than To Amuse You With Stories Of Savage Men And Uncouth Manners, Yet Shall, Before You Taste Of Death, Show Itself Equal To The Whole Of That Commerce Which Now Attracts The Envy Of The World.

The Poorest Being That Crawls On Earth, Contending To Save Itself From Injustice And Oppression, Is An Object Respectable In The Eyes Of God And Man.

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."

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.

Old Religious Factions Are Volcanoes Burnt Out.

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.

Continue To Instruct The World; And - Whilst We Carry On A Poor Unequal Conflict With The Passions And Prejudices Of Our Day, Perhaps With No Better Weapons Than Other Passions And Prejudices Of Our Own - Convey Wisdom To Future Generations.

It Is, Generally, In The Season Of Prosperity That Men Discover Their Real Temper, Principles, And Designs.

A Very Great Part Of The Mischiefs That Vex The World Arises From Words.

By Hating Vices Too Much, They Come To Love Men Too Little.

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.

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

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

People Will Not Look Forward To Posterity, Who Never Look Backward To Their Ancestors.

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.

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

They Defend Their Errors As If They Were Defending Their Inheritance.

Guilt Was Never A Rational Thing; It Distorts All The Faculties Of The Human Mind, It Perverts Them, It Leaves A Man No Longer In The Free Use Of His Reason, It Puts Him Into Confusion.

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.

The Traveller Has Reached The End Of The Journey!

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

To Be Struck With His Power, It Is Only Necessary To Open Our Eyes.

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.

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.

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.

But The Age Of Chivalry Is Gone. That Of Sophisters, Economists, And Calculators Has Succeeded; And The Glory Of Europe Is Extinguished Forever.

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.

That Cardinal Virtue, Temperance.

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 People Of England Well Know That The Idea Of Inheritance Furnishes A Sure Principle Of Conservation And A Sure Principle Of Transmission, Without At All Excluding A Principle Of Improvement.

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," Says Machiavelli, "ought To Be The Only Study Of A Prince;" And By A Prince He Means Every Sort Of State, However Constituted. "he Ought," Says This Great Political Doctor, "to Consider Peace Only As A Breathing-time, Which Gives Him Leisure To Contrive, And Furnishes Ability To Execute Military Plans." A Meditation On The Conduct Of Political Societies Made Old Hobbes Imagine That War Was The State Of Nature.

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.

I Set Out With A Perfect Distrust Of My Own Abilities, A Total Renunciation Of Every Speculation Of My Own, And With A Profound Reverence For The Wisdom Of Our Ancestors, Who Have Left Us The Inheritance Of So Happy A Constitution And So Flourishing An Empire, And, What Is A Thousand Times More Valuable, The Treasury Of The Maxims And Principles Which Formed The One And Obtained The Other.

To Govern According To The Sense And Agreement Of The Interests Of The People Is A Great And Glorious Object Of Governance. This Object Cannot Be Obtained But Through The Medium Of Popular Election, And Popular Election Is A Mighty Evil.

Freedom And Not Servitude Is The Cure Of Anarchy; As Religion, And Not Atheism, Is The True Remedy Of Superstition.

Adversity Is A Severe Instructor, Set Over Us By One Who Knows Us Better Than We Do Ourselves, As He Loves Us Better Too. He That Wrestles With Us Strengthens Our Nerves And Sharpens Our Skill. Our Antagonist Is Our Helper. This Conflict With Difficulty Makes Us Acquainted With Our Object, And Compels Us To Consider It In All Its Relations. It Will Not Suffer Us To Be Superficial.

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.

Genuine Simplicity Of Heart Is A Healing And Cementing Principle.

The Writers Against Religion, Whilst They Oppose Every System, Are Wisely Careful Never To Set Up Any Of Their Own.

Against Religion

He Was Not Merely A Chip Off The Old Block, But The Old Block Itself.

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 Conduct Of A Losing Party Never Appears Right: At Least It Never Can Possess The Only Infallible Criterion Of Wisdom To Vulgar Judgements-success.

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.

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

Greater Mischief Happens Often From Folly, Meanness, And Vanity Than From The Greater Sins Of Avarice And Ambition.

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.

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.

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.

In The Groves Of Their Academy, At The End Of Every Vista, You See Nothing But The Gallows.

Next To Love, Sympathy Is The Divinest Passion Of The Human Heart.

An Extreme Rigor Is Sure To Arm Everything Against It.

The Only Training For The Heroic Is The Mundane.

Turbulent, Discontented Men Of Quality, In Proportion As They Are Puffed Up With Personal Pride And Arrogance, Generally Despise Their Own Order.

There Are Circumstances In Which Despair Does Not Imply Inactivity.

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.

Rage And Frenzy Will Pull Down More In Half An Hour Than Prudence, Deliberation, And Foresight Can Build Up In A Hundred Years.

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.

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.

The March Of The Human Mind Is Slow.

Poetry, With All Its Obscurity, Has A More General As Well As A More Powerful Dominion Over The Passions Than The Art Of Painting.

The Concessions Of The Weak Are The Concessions Of Fear.

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.

Superstition Is The Religion Of Feeble Minds.

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.

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

It Is Very Rare, Indeed, For Men To Be Wrong In Their Feelings Concerning Public Misconduct; As Rare To Be Right In Their Speculations Upon The Cause Of It. I Have Constantly Observed That The Generality Of People Are Fifty Years, At Least, Behind In Their Politics.

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

Oppressive Governments

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Wassily Kandinsky

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