Historical voices

That which may be thought right and found convenient in one age may be thought wrong and found inconvenient in another.

The circumstances of the world are continually changing, and the opinions of men change also; and as government is for the living, and not for the dead, it is the living only that has any right in it.

The Parliament of 1688 might as well have passed an act to have authorised themselves to live for ever, as to make their authority live for ever.

Immortal power is not a human right, and therefore cannot be a right of Parliament.

They destroy the right which they might have, by grounding it on a right which they cannot have.

A law not repealed continues in force, not because it cannot be repealed, but because it is not repealed; and the non-repealing passes for consent.

It requires but a very small glance of thought to perceive that although laws made in one generation often continue in force through succeeding generations, yet they continue to derive their force from the consent of the living.

The weaker any cord is, the less will it bear to be stretched, and the worse is the policy to stretch it, unless it is intended to break it.

If it ever existed it must now exist, for whatever appertains to the nature of man cannot be annihilated by man.

They serve to demonstrate how necessary it is at all times to watch against the attempted encroachment of power, and to prevent its running to excess.

Under how many subtilties or absurdities has the divine right to govern been imposed on the credulity of mankind?

There was a time when kings disposed of their crowns by will upon their death-beds, and consigned the people, like beasts of the field, to whatever successor they appointed.

That which a whole nation chooses to do it has a right to do.

When man ceases to be, his power and his wants cease with him; and having no longer any participation in the concerns of this world, he has no longer any authority in directing who shall be its governors, or how its government shall be…

It is the living, and not the dead, that are to be accommodated.

Every generation is, and must be, competent to all the purposes which its occasions require.

Man has no property in man; neither has any generation a property in the generations which are to follow.

The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies.

Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself in all cases as the age and generations which preceded it.

But, in addition to this right, which they possessed by delegation, they set up another right by assumption, that of binding and controlling posterity to the end of time.

When the tongue or the pen is let loose in a frenzy of passion, it is the man, and not the subject, that becomes exhausted.

They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.

Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what they have left; and standing on the firm ground of the British Constitution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather than attempt to follow in their desperate flights, the aëronauts of…

Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.