Quote#Wisdom
Pitt complained that we lay inactive, while the French pushed on…
Quote byWilliam Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham · 1708–1778
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Remarks to the Council (14 July 1761), quoted in Peter D. Brown and Karl W. Schweizer (eds.), The Devonshire Diary. William Cavendish, Fourth Duke of Devonshire. Memoranda on State Affairs. 1759–1762 (1982), p. 101.
English (original)
Pitt complained that we lay inactive, while the French pushed on their conquests.
— William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
More from William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
Our seamen have always been famous for a matchless alacrity and intrepidity in time of danger; this has saved many a British ship, when other seamen would have run below deck, and left the ship to the mercy of the waves, or, perhaps, of a …
My Lord, I am sure I can save this country, and no one else can.
It must cut up Liberty by the root and poison the Fountain of Publick Security; and who that has an English heart can ever be weary of asserting Liberty?
We are now to examine whether it is probable that we shall preserve our commerce and our independence, or whether we are sinking into subjection to a foreign power.
He wanted to call this country out of that enervate state, that twenty thousand men from France could shake it. The maxims of our Government were degenerated, not our natives. He wished to see that breed restored, which under our old …
A gloomy scene for this distressed, disgraced country.