Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke Quotes

I think, and every wise and honest man in generations yet unborn will think, if the history of [thi]s administration descends to blacken our annals, that the greatest iniquity of the minister <nowiki>[</nowiki>Robert Walpole<nowiki>]</nowiki>, on whom the whole iniquity ought to be charged, since he has been so long in possession of the whole power, is the constant endeavour he has employed to corrupt the morals of men.

The manners of our fore-fathers were, I believe, in many respects better: they had more probity perhaps, they had certainly more show of honour, and greater industry.

There are limitations indeed that would destroy the essential form of monarchy: or, in other words, a monarchical constitution may be changed, under pretence of limiting the monarch. This happened among us in the last century, when the vilest usurpation, and the most infamous tyranny, were established over our nation, by some of the worst and some of the meanest men in it. I will not say, that the essential form of monarchy should be preserved, tho the preservation of it were to cause the loss of liberty. Salus reipsuprema lex esto, is a fundamental law: and sure I am, the safety of a commonwealth is ill provided for, if the liberty be given up. But this I presume to say, and can demonstrate, that all the limitations necessary to preserve liberty, as long as the spirit of it subsists, and longer than that, no limitations of monarchy, nor any other form of government, can preserve it, are compatible with monarchy.

I esteem monarchy above any other form of government, and hereditary monarchy above elective. I reverence kings, their office, their rights, their persons; and it will never be owing to the principles I am going to establish, because the character and government of a patriot king can be established on no other, if their office and their right are not always held divine, and their persons always sacred.

God who placed me here will do what He pleases with me hereafter, and He knows best what to do.

There have been periods when our government continued free, with strong appearances of becoming absolute. Let it be your glory, my Lord, and that of the new generation springing up with you, that this government do not become absolute at any future period, with the appearances of being free.

The landed men are the true owners of our political vessel, the moneyed men are no more than passengers in it.

Like other amphibious animals, we must come occasionally on shore: but the water is more properly our element, and in it, like them, as we find our greatest security, so we exert our greatest force.

The service of our country is no chimerical, but a real duty. He who admits the proofs of any other moral duty, drawn from the constitution of human nature, or from the moral fitness and unfitness of things, must admit them in favour of this duty, or be reduced to the most absurd inconsistency.

It follows, therefore, that he who breaks the laws of his country resists the ordinance of God, that is, the law of his nature. God has instituted neither monarchy, nor aristocracy, nor democracy, nor mixed government: but tho God has instituted no particular form of government among men, yet by the general laws of his kingdom, he exacts our obedience to the laws of those communities to which each of us is attached by birth, or to which we may be attached by a subsequent and lawful engagement.

We are born too late to see the beginning, and we die too soon to see the end of many things.

A peace must be had; and all mankind sees plainly now, in how vile a manner former opportunities were neglected of making a better than at this hour we have reason to expect.

Nations, like men, have their infancy.

The result of what has been said is, in general, that the wealth and power of all nations depending so much on their trade and commerce, and every nation being...in such different circumstances of advantage or disadvantage in the pursuit of this common interest; a good government, and therefore the government of a patriot king, will be directed constantly to make the most of every advantage that nature has given, or art can procure towards the improvement of trade and commerce. And this is one of the principal criterions, by which we are to judge whether governors are in the true interest of the people, or not.
It results, in particular, that Great Britain might improve her wealth and power in a proportion superior to that of any nation who can be deemed her rival, if the advantages she has were as wisely cultivated, as they will be in the reign of a patriot king.

They (Thucydides and Xenophon) maintained the dignity of history.