English Politician Quotes

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

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

And for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of that country know them to be sharp and violent, and subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search an unknown coast.... For summer being done, all things stand upon them with a weather-beaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hue.

William Bradford (1590-1657)

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

The plaintiff cannot dive into the secret recesses of his (the defendant's) heart.

John Romilly, 1st Baron Romilly

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.

The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the holy scriptures.. are found upon comparison to be really part of the original law of nature. Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.

William Blackstone