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Refined Policy Ever Has Been The Parent Of Confusion, And Ever Will Be So As Long As The World Endures. Plain Good Intention, Which Is As Easily Discovered At The First View As Fraud Is Surely Detected At Last, Is Of No Mean Force In The Government Of Mankind.

-Edmund Burke

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Refined Policy Ever Has

Edmund Burke

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Refined Policy Ever Has Been The Parent Of Confusion, And Ever Will Be So As Long As The World Endures. Plain Good Intention, Which Is As Easily Discovered At The First View As Fraud Is Surely Detected At Last, Is Of No Mean Force In The Government Of Mankind.

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Contempt Is Not A Thing To Be Despised.

Free Trade Is Not Based On Utility But On Justice.

To Drive Men From Independence To Live On Alms, Is Itself Great Cruelty.

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

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.

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.

If The People Are Happy, United, Wealthy, And Powerful, We Presume The Rest. We Conclude That To Be Good From Whence Good Is Derived.

To Complain Of The Age We Live In, To Murmur At The Present Possessors Of Power, To Lament The Past, To Conceive Extravagant Hopes Of The Future, Are The Common Dispositions Of The Greatest Part Of Mankind.

Education Is The Cheap Defense Of Nations.

Restraint And Discipline And Examples Of Virtue And Justice. These Are The Things That Form The Education Of The World.

Government Is The Exercise Of All The Great Qualities Of The Human Mind.

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

An Extreme Rigor Is Sure To Arm Everything Against It.

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

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

Bad Laws Are The Worst Sort Of Tyranny.

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.

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.

Beauty Is The Promise Of Happiness.

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 .

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.

War Is The Matter Which Fills All History; And Consequently The Only, Or Almost The Only, View In Which We Can See The External Of Political Society Is In A Hostile Shape: And The Only Actions To Which We Have Always Seen, And Still See, All Of Them Intent, Are Such As Tend To The Destruction Of One Another.

Party Is A Body Of Men United, For Promoting By Their Joint Endeavours The National Interest, Upon Some Particular Principle In Which They Are All Agreed.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

I Own That There Is A Haughtiness And Fierceness In Human Nature Which Will Cause Innumerable Broils, Place Men In What Situation You Please.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

Reflect How You Are To Govern A People Who Think They Ought To Be Free, And Think They Are Not. Your Scheme Yields No Revenue; It Yields Nothing But Discontent, Disorder, Disobedience; And Such Is The State Of America, That After Wading Through Up To Your Eyes In Blood, You Could Only End Up Where You Begun; That Is, To Tax Where No Revenue Is To Be Found... All Is Confusion Beyond It.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Abstract Liberty, Like Other Mere Abstractions, Is Not To Be Found.

It Is By Imitation, Far More Than By Precept, That We Learn Everything; And What We Learn Thus, We Acquire Not Only More Effectually, But More Pleasantly.

Equity Money Is Dynamic And Debt Money Is Static.

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

Whenever Our Neighbour's House Is On Fire, It Cannot Be Amiss For The Engines To Play A Little On Our Own.

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.

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

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

Greatest Wealth

There Is No Safety For Honest Men, But By Believing All Possible Evil Of Evil Men, And By Acting With Promptitude, Decision, And Steadiness On That Belief.

Society Can Overlook Murder, Adultery Or Swindling; It Never Forgives Preaching Of A New Gospel.

It Is From This Absolute Indifference And Tranquillity Of The Mind, That Mathematical Speculations Derive Some Of The Most Considerable Advantages; Because There Is Nothing To Interest The Imagination; Because The Judgment Sits Free And Unbiased To Examine The Point. All Proportions, Every Arrangement Of Quantity, Is Alike To The Understanding, Because The Same Truths Result To It From All; From Greater From Lesser, From Equality And Inequality.

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.

The Arrogance Of Age Must Submit To Be Taught By Youth.

Arrogance Of Youth

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

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

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.

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.

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

It Is Known That The Taste--whatever It Is--is Improved Exactly As We Improve Our Judgment, By Extending Our Knowledge, By A Steady Attention To Our Object, And By Frequent Exercise.

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

The Traveller Has Reached The End Of The Journey!

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.

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.

Better To Be Despised For Too Anxious Apprehensions Than Ruined By Too Confident A Security.

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

Facts Are To The Mind What Food Is To The Body. On The Due Digestion Of The Former Depend The Strength And Wisdom Of The One, Just As Vigor And Health Depend On The Other. The Wisest In Council, The Ablest In Debate, And The Most Agreeable Companion In The Commerce Of Human Life, Is That Man Who Has Assimilated To His Understanding The Greatest Number Of Facts.

And Having Looked To Government For Bread, On The Very First Scarcity They Will Turn And Bite The Hand That Fed Them.

Government Welfare

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

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

It May Be Observed, That Very Polished Languages, And Such As Are Praised For Their Superior Clearness And Perspicuity, Are Generally Deficient In Strength.

The Yielding Of The Weak Is The Concession To Fear.

I Thought Ten Thousand Swords Must Have Leaped From Their Scabbards To Avenge Even A Look That Threatened Her With Insult. But The Age Of Chivalry Is Gone.

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

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

Futurity Is The Great Concern Of Mankind.

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.

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

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.

Power Gradually Extirpates From The Mind Every Humane And Gentle Virtue.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

As The Rose-tree Is Composed Of The Sweetest Flowers And The Sharpest Thorns, As The Heavens Are Sometimes Overcast—alternately Tempestuous And Serene—so Is The Life Of Man Intermingled With Hopes And Fears, With Joys And Sorrows, With Pleasure And Pain.

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 The Most To The Perpetuation Of Society Itself.

Is It In Destroying And Pulling Down That Skill Is Displayed? The Shallowest Understanding, The Rudest Hand, Is More Than Equal To That Task.

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.

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.

An Event Has Happened, Upon Which It Is Difficult To Speak, And Impossible To Be Silent.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

History Consists, For The Greater Part, Of The Miseries Brought Upon The World By Pride, Ambition, Avarice, Revenge, Lust, Sedition, Hypocrisy, Ungoverned Zeal, And All The Train Of Disorderly Appetite.

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.

Never Despair, But If You Do, Work On In Despair.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Liberty Must Be Limited In Order To Be Possessed.

General Rebellions And Revolts Of A Whole People Never Were Encouraged Now Or At Any Time. They Are Always Provoked.

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

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.

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.

Circumstances Give In Reality To Every Political Principle Its Distinguishing Color And Discriminating Effect. The Circumstances Are What Render Every Civil And Political Scheme Beneficial Or Noxious To Mankind.

He That Borrows The Aid Of An Equal Understanding Doubles His Own; He That Uses That Of A Superior Elevates His Own To The Stature Of That He Contemplates.

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

Evil Prevails When Good Men Fail To Act.

They Made And Recorded A Sort Of Institute And Digest Of Anarchy, Called The Rights Of Man.

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

The Wisdom Of Our Ancestors.

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

All That Needs To Be Done For Evil To Prevail Is Good Men Doing Nothing.

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

They [americans] Augur Misgovernment At A Distance And Snuff The Approach Of Tyranny In Every Tainted Breeze.

Humanity Cannot Be Degraded By Humiliation.

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

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.

Circumspection And Caution Are Part Of Wisdom.

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

Many Of The Greatest Tyrants On The Records Of History Have Begun Their Reigns In The Fairest Manner. But The Truth Is, This Unnatural Power Corrupts Both The Heart And The Understanding.

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

Over-taxation Cost England Her Colonies Of North America.

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

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

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

Men Have No Right To Put The Well-being Of The Present Generation Wholly Out Of The Question. Perhaps The Only Moral Trust With Any Certainty In Our Hands Is The Care Of Our Own Time.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

There Is Nothing In The World Really Beneficial That Does Not Lie Within The Reach Of An Informed Understanding And A Well-protected Pursuit.

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

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.

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

Learning Will Be Cast Into The Mire And Trodden Down Under The Hoofs Of A Swinish Multitude.

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.

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.

Gambling Is A Principle Inherent In Human Nature.

The Great Inlet By Which A Colour For Oppression Has Entered Into The World Is By One Man's Pretending To Determine Concerning The Happiness Of Another.

Wise Men Will Apply Their Remedies To Vices, Not To Names; To The Causes Of Evil Which Are Permanent, Not The Occasional Organs By Which They Act, And The Transitory Modes In Which They Appear.

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.

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

Whenever A Separation Is Made Between Liberty And Justice, Neither, In My Opinion, Is Safe.

The Love Of Lucre, Though Sometimes Carried To A Ridiculous Excess, A Vicious Excess, Is The Grand Cause Of Prosperity To All States.

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.

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.

One Source Of The Sublime Is Infinity.

The Greater The Power, The More Dangerous The Abuse.

Religion Is Among The Most Powerful Causes Of Enthusiasm.

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.

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."

Fraud Is The Ready Minister Of Injustice.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Genuine Simplicity Of Heart Is A Healing And Cementing Principle.

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.

Politics And The Pulpit Are Terms That Have Little Agreement.

When You Fear Something, Learn As Much About It As You Can. Knowledge Conquers Fear.

Conquering Fear

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.

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.

A Great Deal Of The Furniture Of Ancient Tyranny Is Torn To Rags; The Rest Is Entirely Out Of Fashion.

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.

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.

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.

The Essence Of Tyranny Is The Enforcement Of Stupid Laws.

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

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

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.

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

The Grand Instructor, Time.

Those Who Attempt To Level Never Equalize

Vice Incapacitates A Man From All Public Duty; It Withers The Powers Of His Under- Standing, And Makes His Mind Paralytic.

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.

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

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

The Individual Is Foolish; The Multitude, For The Moment Is Foolish, When They Act Without Deliberation; But The Species Is Wise, And, When Time Is Given To It, As A Species It Always Acts Right.

Nothing Less Will Content Me, Than Wholeamerica.

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