Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke Quotes

Our liberty cannot be taken away unless the people are themselves accomplices.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Taken, People, Liberty

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Indifference must be a crime in us, to be ranked but one degree below treachery; for deserting the commonwealth is next to betraying it.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Degrees, Apathy, Next

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History is philosophy teaching by example and also by warning.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Philosophy, Teaching, Geography And History

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I have observed that in comedies the best actor plays the droll, while some scrub rogue is made the fine gentleman or hero. Thus it is in the farce of life. Wise men spend their time in mirth; it is only fools who are serious.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Wise, Hero, Men

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Faction is to party what the superlative is to the positive. Party is a political evil, and faction is the worst of all parties.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Party, Evil, Political

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As well as might we say that a ship is built, loaded and manned for the sake of any particular pilot, instead of acknowledging that the pilot is made for the sake of the ship, her lading, and her crew, who are always the owners in the political vessel; as to say that kingdoms were instituted for kings, not kings for kingdoms.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Kings, History, Political

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It is a very easy thing to devise good laws; the difficulty is to make them effective. The great mistake is that of looking upon men as virtuous, or thinking that they can be made so by laws; and consequently the greatest art of a politician is to render vices serviceable to the cause of virtue.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Art, Mistake, Men

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The confirmed prejudices of a thoughtful life are as hard to change as the confirmed habits of an indolent life; and as some must trifle away age because they trifled away youth, others must labor on in a maze of error because they have wandered there too long to find their way out.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Thoughtful, Errors, Long

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No religion ever appeared in the world whose natural tendency was so much directed to promote the peace and happiness of mankind. It makes right reason a law in every possible definition of the word. And therefore, even supposing it to have been purely a human invention, it had been the most amiable and the most useful invention that was ever imposed on mankind for their good.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Law, World, Definitions

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God himself, with reverence be it spoken, is not an absolute but a limited monarch, limited by the rule which infinite wisdom prescribes to infinite power.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Infinite, Reverence, Monarchy

"Patriot King" in "The Dictionary of Legal Quotations" by James William Norton-Kyshe, (pp. 224-226), 1904.

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It is the modest, not the presumptuous, inquirer who makes a real and safe progress in the discovery of divine truths. One follows Nature and Nature's God; that is, he follows God in his works and in his word.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Real, Discovery, Progress

Henry St John's letter to Alexander Pope, as quoted in "The Work of Lord Bolingbroke: With a Life, Prepared Expressly for this Edition, Containing Additional Information Relative to His Personal and Public Character, Selected from the Best Authorities. In Four Volumes. Volume III", 1841.

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Cunning pays no regard to virtue, and is but the low mimic of reason.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Pay, Virtue, Reason

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A long novitiate of acquaintance should precede the vows of friendship.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Long, Vow, Should

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I think it indisputable that the distance between the intellectual faculties of different men is greater than that between the same faculties in some men and some other animals.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Distance, Animal, Men

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To converse with historians is to keep good company; many of them were excellent men, and those who were not, have taken care to appear such in their writings.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Taken, Writing, Men

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There is so much trouble in coming into the world, and so much more, as well as meanness, in going out of it, that it is hardly worth while to be here at all.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Going Out, World, Trouble

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Worry is the only insupportable misfortune of life.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Worry, Misfortunes

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Whatever study tends neither directly nor indirectly to make us better men and citizens is at best but a specious and ingenious sort of idleness; and the knowledge we acquire by it only a creditable kind of ignorance, nothing more.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Ignorance, Men, Citizens

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What Anacharsis said of the vine may aptly enough be said of prosperity. She bears the three grapes of drunkenness, pleasure, and sorrow; and happy is it if the last can cure the mischief which the former work. When afflictions fail to have their due effect, the case is desperate.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Sorrow, Three, Vines

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The greatest art of a politician is to render vice serviceable to the cause of virtue.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Art, Political, Vices

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The fire of my adversity has purged the mass of my acquaintance.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Adversity, Fire, Mass

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What a world is this, and how does fortune banter us!

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Doe, World, Fortune

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I have read somewhere or other, - in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, I think, - that history is philosophy teaching by examples.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Philosophy, Teaching, Thinking

"Letters on the study and use of history" by Henry St. John Bolingbroke, (letter 2), 1752.

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Lawyers must pry into the recesses of the human heart, and become well acquainted with the whole moral world, that they may discover the abstract reason of all laws.

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Heart, Law, World

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Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

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Born: September 16, 1678
Died: December 12, 1751
Occupation: Politician
Cite this Page: Citation

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