Historical voices

But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks,--and all it wants,--is the liberty of appearing.

Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think.

So deeply rooted were all the governments of the old world, and so effectually had the tyranny and the antiquity of habit established itself over the mind, that no beginning could be made in Asia, Africa, or Europe, to reform the political…

The revolution of America presented in politics what was only theory in mechanics.

To say that any people are not fit for freedom, is to make poverty their choice, and to say they had rather be loaded with taxes than not.

On all such subjects men have but to think, and they will neither act wrong nor be misled.

It might be said, that until men think for themselves the whole is prejudice, and not opinion; for that only is opinion which is the result of reason and reflection.

As to the prejudices which men have from education and habit, in favour of any particular form or system of government, those prejudices have yet to stand the test of reason and reflection.

Burke may see I have not written on Government without reflecting on what is Law, as well as on what are Rights.--The only effectual jury in such cases would be a convention of the whole nation fairly elected; for in all such cases the…

Mankind are not now to be told they shall not think, or they shall not read; and publications that go no farther than to investigate principles of government, to invite men to reason and to reflect, and to show the errors and excellences…

If better reasons can be shown for them than against them, they will stand; if the contrary, they will not.

I do not believe that monarchy and aristocracy will continue seven years longer in any of the enlightened countries in Europe.

It is better that the whole argument should come out than to seek to stifle it.

When those defects, and the means of remedying them, are generally seen by a nation, that nation will reform its government or its constitution in the one case, as the government repealed or reformed the law in the other.

The defects of every government and constitution both as to principle and form, must, on a parity of reasoning, be as open to discussion as the defects of a law, and it is a duty which every man owes to society to point them out.

It is for the good of nations and not for the emolument or aggrandisement of particular individuals, that government ought to be established, and that mankind are at the expense of supporting it.

If a law be bad it is one thing to oppose the practice of it, but it is quite a different thing to expose its errors, to reason on its defects, and to show cause why it should be repealed, or why another ought to be substituted in its…

It would be an act of despotism, or what in England is called arbitrary power, to make a law to prohibit investigating the principles, good or bad, on which such a law, or any other is founded.

The greatest condemnation that could be passed upon it would be a refutation.

Pardoning the pun, it must be criminal justice indeed that should condemn a work as a substitute for not being able to refute it.

But until this be done, I shall so far take the sense of the public for my guide (and the world knows I am not a flatterer) that what they do not think worth while to read, is not worth mine to answer.

A little matter will move a party, but it must be something great that moves a nation.

A set of childish thinkers, and half-way politicians born in the last century, men who went no farther with any principle than as it suited their purposes as a party; the nation was always left out of the question; and this has been the…

Principles must stand on their own merits, and if they are good they certainly will.