To Read Without Reflecting Is Like Eating

I Cannot Stand Forward, And Give Praise Or Blame To Any Thing Which Relates To Human Actions, And Human Concerns, On A Simple View Of The Subject As It Stands Stripped Of Every Relation, In All The Nakedness And Solitude Of Metaphysical Abstraction. Circumstances (which With Some Gentlemen Pass For Nothing) Give In Reality To Every Political Principle Its Distinguishing Colour, And Discriminating Effect. The Circumstances Are What Render Every Civil And Political Scheme Beneficial Or Noxious To Mankind.

Men Have No Right To Put The Well-being Of The Present Generation Wholly Out Of The Question. Perhaps The Only Moral Trust With Any Certainty In Our Hands Is The Care Of Our Own Time.

Good Order Is The Foundation Of All Things.

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.

Whilst Shame Keeps Its Watch, Virtue Is Not Wholly Extinguished In The Heart; Nor Will Moderation Be Utterly Exiled From The Minds Of Tyrants.