In his opinion, the best security for the due maintenance of the constitution, was in the strict and incessant vigilance of the people over parliamen… - Charles James Fox

[H]e was indebted to his right honourable friend <nowiki>[</nowiki>Edmund Burke<nowiki>]</nowiki> for the greatest share of the political knowledge he possessed,—his political education had been formed under him,—his instructions had invariably governed his principles.

But at no one time had he given an unqualified opinion of the governments which succeeded that event [the abolition of the French monarchy]; much less would he stand pledged to give the least countenance to the scenes of blood and cruelty which had been the almost inseparable attendants on the varied and successive governments that followed one another. He formed his opinion of government by the test of practice, and not by the theory and on paper.

Peace is the wish of the French of Italy Spain Germany and all the world, and Great Britain alone the cause of preventing its accomplishment, and this not for any point of honour or even interest, but merely lest there should be an example in the modern world of a great powerful Republic.