Sourced and curated.

1770

★ 1.9

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts.

1777

★ 1.9

Society is indeed a contract... 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.

Reflections on the Revolution in France · 1790

★ 1.9

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

1771

★ 2.0

Liberty, too, must be limited in order to be possessed.

1777

★ 2.0

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

Speech at the Bristol Guildhall, September 6, 1780 · 1780

★ 2.0

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

Reflections on the Revolution in France · 1790

★ 2.0

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom.

Reflections on the Revolution in France · 1790

★ 2.0

Ambition can creep as well as soar.

1797

★ 2.0

We must soften into a credulity below the milkiness of infancy, to think all men virtuous. We must be tainted with a malignity truly diabolical, to believe all the world to be equally wicked and corrupt.

1770

★ 3.5

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.

1770

★ 3.5

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.

On Conciliation with America · 1775

★ 3.5

There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity, — the Law of Nature and of Nations.

The law touches us but here and there, and now and then. 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 in.

1794

★ 3.5

Open letter · Letter

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 in. They give their whole form and color to our lives.

1796

★ 3.5

Open letter · Letter · Political literature

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

1796

★ 3.5

Philosophical literature

Philosophical Enquiry in the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful · 1757

★ 3.6

Laws, like houses, lean on one another.

1760

★ 3.6

It is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public, to be the most anxious for its welfare.

1769

★ 3.6

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

1774

★ 3.6

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

On Conciliation with America · 1775

★ 3.6

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.

1777

★ 3.6

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 its combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor.

Reflections on the Revolution in France · 1790

★ 3.6

To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affection. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed towards a love to our country and to mankind.

Reflections on the Revolution in France · 1790

★ 3.6

It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

Custom reconciles us to everything.

1791

★ 3.6

Philosophical literature

Philosophical Enquiry in the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful · 1757

★ 3.7

We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us.

1770

★ 3.7

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

1777

★ 3.7

Individuals pass like shadows; but the commonwealth is fixed and stable.

1780

★ 3.7

The age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever.

Reflections on the Revolution in France · 1790

★ 3.7

It is said, that twenty-four millions ought to prevail over two hundred thousand. True, if the constitution of a kingdom be a problem of arithmetic.

Reflections on the Revolution in France · 1790

★ 3.7

People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.

Reflections on the Revolution in France · 1790

★ 3.7

Open letter · Letter · Political literature

1796

★ 3.7

By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little.

Reflections on the Revolution in France · 1790

★ 3.8

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

We have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others.

Reflections on the Revolution in France · 1790

★ 3.8

Philosophical literature

Philosophical Enquiry in the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful · 1757

★ 5.3

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

On Conciliation with America · 1775

★ 5.3

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 do not imagine, that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field.

Reflections on the Revolution in France · 1790

★ 5.3

Old religious factions are volcanoes burnt out.

Speech on the Petition of the Unitarians, May 11, 1792 · 1792

★ 5.4

Every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.