Politics & Power Quotes — page 2

It is very sad, but I'm afraid America is bound to forge ahead and nothing can restore the equality between us. If we had interfered in the Confederate War it was then possible for us to reduce the power of the United States to manageable …

If I were master of eloquence I would not make the decision of this cause a stage upon which I would display that eloquence. Those things which are very proper for advocates to do, become very improper for the Judge, who has nothing to do, …

I do not disguise from myself the fact that I can never make all the members of our nation equally happy and contented. But I have good hope that I shall succeed in bringing about a state of things with which all can be content who have …

All large political questions are at bottom economic questions.

Were the talents and virtues which heaven has bestowed on men given merely to make them more obedient drudges, to be sacrificed to the follies and ambition of a few? Or, were not the noble gifts so equally dispensed with a divine purpose …

It is the same with the use of force, whether of the mob or of the State, upon diseased society; and not only those who prescribe its indiscriminate use as a sovereign remedy and a permanent tonic, but all who ever propose it as a cure, …

Our revolution has been called the minimum of a revolution, because in law, at least, it only changed the dynasty, but exactly on that account it was the greatest shock to the common multitude, who see the dynasty but see nothing else.

The civil service can never be placed on a satisfactory basis until it is regulated by law.

In 1834 the Government...did themselves high honour by the new Poor Law Act, which rescued the English peasantry from the total loss of their independence.

The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be …

[E]xperience has taught me that those who give their time to the absorbing claims of what is called society, not having leisure to keep up a large acquaintance with the organs of opinion, remain much more ignorant of the general state …

This skeptical method consists very much in vicious circles. You cannot know whether a fact be a fact till you have ascertained the laws of nature in the case, and you cannot know the laws of nature till you have ascertained facts.

There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.

The proper memory for a politician is one that knows what to remember and what to forget.

My original essay, having been written for a popular monthly, assumes, for no better reason than that real inquiry cannot begin until a state of real doubt arises and ends as soon as Belief is attained, that "a settlement of Belief," or, …

There are two laws discrete Not reconciled, Law for man, and law for thing.

There is not a power in Europe, no not even Bonaparte's that is so unlimited [as the British monarchy].

Lord Palmerston: Then you did not vote for me, friend Rowcliffe; you preferred voting for a Tory. William Rowcliffe: I did not vote for you, my Lord, for if I had, I should have voted for a Tory.

Under the present government, all ranks of people are subject to militia duty.

Man is a social and gregarious animal, and all such animals hold property in each other. Nature imposes upon them slavery as a law and necessity of their existence… The husband has a legally recognized property in his wife’s services, and …

[T]he laws of science are products of the human mind rather than factors of the external world.

The wisest man could ask no more of Fate Than to be simple, modest, manly, true, Safe from the Many, honored by the Few; To count as naught in World or Church or State; But inwardly in secret to be great.

The employment of the poor in roads and public works, and a tendency among landlords and persons of property to build, to improve and beautify their grounds, and to employ workmen and menial servants, are the means most within our power …

The bicycle had what is called the 'wabbles', and had them very badly. In order to keep my position, a good many things were required of me, and in every instance the thing required was against nature. Against nature, but not against the …