Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation.You choose a Member indeed; but when you have chosen him, heisnotthe Member for Bristol, but heisa Member of Parliament.
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.
To innovate is not to reform.
Ambition can creep as well as soar.
Free trade is not based on utility but on justice.
The science of constructing a commonwealth or renovating it, or reforming it, is...not to be taught a priori...That which in the first instance is prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter operation, and its excellence may rise even from the ill effects it produces in the beginning. The reverse also happens; and very plausible schemes, with very pleasing commencements, have often shameful and lamentable conclusions.
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.
Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.
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.
Custom reconciles us to everything.
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 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.
Hypocrisy is no cheap vice; nor can our natural temper be masked for many years together.
Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations - wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.
Thank God, men that art greatly guilty are never wise.
Next to love, Sympathy is the divinest passion of the human heart.
An appearance of delicacy, and even fragility, is almost essential to beauty.
Gambling is a principle inherent in human nature.
Evil succeeds when good men do nothing
They [Americans] augur misgovernment at a distance and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.
He had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame; a passion which is the instinct of all great souls.
Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants.
The more accurately we search into the human mind, the stronger traces we everywhere find of his wisdom who made it.
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.
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.
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