17th-century Politician Quotes

All these threatening storms, which, like impregnate Clouds, hover o'er our heads, will (when they once are grasp'd but by the eye of reason) melt into fruitful showers of blessings on the people.

George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham

And when I feigned an angry look,
Alas! I loved you best.

John Sheffield, 1st Duke of Buckingham and Normanby

The only way therefore to try a Piece of Wit, is to translate it into a different Language: If it bears the Test you may pronounceit true; but if it vanishes in the Experiment you may conclude it to have been a Punn.

A fool hath no dialogue within himself, the first thought carrieth him without the reply of a second.

George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax

The fear of God is freedom, joy, and peace;
And makes all ills that vex us here to cease.

'Do you not see your country is lost?' asked the Duke of Buckingham. 'There is one way never to see it lost' replied William, 'and that is to die in the last ditch.'

All Politeness is owing to Liberty. We polish one another, and rub off our Corners and rough Sides by a sort of amicable Collision. To restrain this, is inevitably to bring a Rust upon Mens Understandings.

Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury

How could such sweet and wholesome hours be reckoned, but in herbs and flowers?

I love to consider an Infidel, whether distinguished by the title of deist, atheist, or free-thinker, by three different lights, in his solitude, his afflictions, and his last moments.... [In these situations such people show themselves] in solitude, incapable or rapture or elevation,... in distress, [with] a halter or a pistol the only refuge [they] can fly to,... [and liable to conversion] at the approach of death.

A lover forsaken
A new love may get,
But a neck when once broken
Can never be set.

William Walsh (poet)

To worship is to quicken the conscience by the holiness of God, to feed the mind with the truth of God, to purge the imagination by the beauty of God, to open the heart to the love of God, to devote the will to the purpose of God.

And it is a wonder what will be the fashion after the plagueisdoneastoperiwigs, fornobody will daretobuy any haire for fear of the infectionthat it had been cut off the heads of people dead of the plague.

Whoever of ye Whigs thinks I am to be Hecktor'd or frighted into a Complyance tho I am a woman, are mightely mistaken in me. I thank God I have a Soul above that, & am too much conserned for my reputation to do any thing to forfeit it.

Anne of Great Britain

Tis hard to comprehend how one man can come to be master of many, equal to himself in right, unless it be by consent or by force.

Algernon Sidney

I would have my son mind and understand business, read little history, study the mathematics and cosmography; these are good, with subordination to the things of God.... These fit for public services for which man is born.

Oliver Cromwell

The flowers anew returning seasons bring!
But beauty faded has no second spring.

Ambrose Philips

Consider a little how you treat the Court; the objection hath been solemnly taken in this Court, argued and adjudged by this Court, and now you come to arraign that judgment that was then given.

Love still has something of the sea
From whence his mother rose.

The remembrance of death is very powerful to restrain us from sinning. For he should well consider the day will come (and he knoweth not how soon)..... no more Suns will rise and set upon him;.. no more seeing, no more hearing. no more speaking, no more touching, no more tasting, no more fancying, no more understanding, no more remembering, no more desiring, no more loving, no more delights of any sort to be enjoyed by him... let any man duly and daily ponder these things, and how can it be that he should dare.....

Nicholas Ferrar

It was a very proper answer to him who asked why any map should be delighted with beauty, that it was a question that none but a blind man could ask; since any beautiful object doth so much attract the sight of all men, that it is in no man's power not to be pleased with it.

Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon

No State can enjoy tranquility, nor repel hostile attacks, nor defend its laws, its religion and its liberty, unless it be armed.

Raimondo Montecuccoli

How comes it to pass, then, that we appear such cowards in reasoning, and are so afraid to stand the test of ridicule? - Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury

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

Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

For a profest architect is proud, opiniative and troublesome, seldom at hand, and a head workman pretending to the designing part, is full of paltry vulgar contrivances; therefore be your owne architect, or sitt still.

Ten years the world upon him falsely smiled,
Sheathing in fawning looks the deadly knife
Long aimed at his head; that so beguiled
It more securely might bereave his life:
Then threw him to a scaffold from a throne.
Much doctrine lies under this little stone.

Sir Richard Fanshawe, 1st Baronet