Quotes · Skopia

215 quotes

SortEditorial Year Length

Era·Age of Enlightenment✕clear

Autobiography and memoir

It was at Rome, on the 15th of October 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the bare-footed fryars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.

1794

★ 1.0

Histories are more full of Examples of the Fidelity of dogs than of Friends.

1709

★ 1.1

Treatise · Legal writing

In all tyrannical governments, the supreme magistracy, or the right both of making and of enforcing the laws, is vested in one and the same man, or one and the same body of men; and wherever these two powers are united together, there can be no public liberty.

William Blackstone

Commentaries on the Laws of England · 1769

★ 1.1

Essay · Satire

The Stoical scheme of supplying our wants by lopping off our desires, is like cutting off our feet when we want shoes.

1711

★ 1.2

Philosophical literature

In a nation distracted by faction, there are, no doubt, always a few, though commonly but a very few, who preserve their judgment untainted by the general contagion. They seldom amount to more than here and there a solitary individual, without any influence, excluded by his own candour from the confidence of either party, and who, though he may be one of the wisest, is necessarily upon that very account one of the most insignificant men in the society.

The Theory of Moral Sentiments · 1759

★ 1.2

Historical literature

Persuasion is the resource of the feeble; and the feeble can seldom persuade.

The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire · 1789

★ 1.2

Novel · Satire

A man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to county, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is only a vagabond.

Oliver Goldsmith

1761

★ 1.8

Speech · Political speech

Taxation and representation are inseparable... Whatever is a man's own, is absolutely his own; no man hath a right to take it from him withough his consent either expressed by himself or representative; whoever attempts to do it, attempts an injury; whoever does it, commits a robbery; he throws down and destroys the distinction between liberty and slavery.

Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden

1766

★ 1.8

O, we all acknowledge our faults, now; 'its the mode of the day: but the acknowledgement passes for current payment; and therefore we never amend them.

Camilla · 1796

★ 1.8

Wheree'er you walk, cool gales shall fan the glade, Trees, where you sit, shall crowd into a shade: Where'er you tread, the blushing flowers shall rise, And all things flourish where you turn your eyes.

1709

★ 1.9

To wake the soul by tender strokes of art, To raise the genius, and to mend the heart; To make mankind, in conscious virtue bold, Live o'er each scene, and be what they behold: For this the tragic Muse first trod the stage.

1713

★ 1.9

Methinks God has punish'd the Avaritious as he often punishes sinners, in their own way, in the very sin itself: the thirst of gain was their crime, that thirst continued became their punishment and ruin.

1720

★ 1.9

Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer, And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer; Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike, Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike.

1735

★ 1.9

Thought would destroy their paradise. No more; where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise.

1747

★ 1.9

Such is the patriot's boast, where'er we roam, His first, best country ever is at home.

Oliver Goldsmith

1764

★ 1.9

Friendship is a disinterested commerce between equals; love, an abject intercourse between tyrants and slaves.

Oliver Goldsmith

1768

★ 1.9

Pamphlet · Political literature

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.

1770

★ 1.9

My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here, My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer; Chasing the wild-deer, and following the roe, My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go.

1789

★ 1.9

I do really take it for an indisputable truth, and a truth that is one of the corner stones of political science—the more strictly we are watched, the better we behave.

1797

★ 1.9

Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

An Essay on Criticism · 1711

★ 1.9

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