17 Charles James Fox Quotes

Charles James Fox quotes

1. Kings govern by means of popular assemblies only when they cannot do without them.

2. The worst of revolutions is a restoration.

3. How much the greatest event it is that ever happened in the world! and how much the best!

4. All political power is a trust.

5. He that is conscious of guilt cannot bear the innocence of others: So they will try to reduce all others to their own level.

1. Persecution always says, 'I know the consequences of your opinion better than you know them yourselves.' But the language of toleration was always amicable, liberal, and just: it confessed its doubts, and acknowledged its ignorance ... Persecution had always reasoned from cause to effect, from opinion to action, [that such an opinion would invariably lead to but one action], which proved generally erroneous; while toleration led us invariably to form just conclusions, by judging from actions and not from opinions.

2. Opinions become dangerous to a state only when persecution makes it necessary for the people to communicate their ideas under the bond of secrecy.

3. I prefer the hardest terms of peace to the most just war.

4. There is no man who hates the power of the crown more, or who has a worse opinion of the Person to whom it belongs than I.

5. What acquaintance have the people at large with the arena of political rectitude, with the connections of kingdoms, the resources of national strength, the abilities of ministers, or even with their own dispositions?...I pay no regard whatever to the voice of the people: it is their duty to do what is proper, without considering what may be agreeable.

6. There is a spirit of resistance implanted by the Deity in the breast of man, proportioned to the size of the wrongs he is destined to endure.

7. Illustrious man! deriving honor less from the splendor of his situation than from the dignity of his mind.

8. Bonaparte's wish is Peace, nay that he is afraid of war to the last degree.

9. Any thing that proves that it is not in the power of Kings and Princes by their great armies to have every thing their own way is of such good example that without any good will to the French one can not help being delighted by it, and you know I have a natural partiality to what some people call rebels.

10. Toleration in religion was one of the great rights of man, and a man ought never to be deprived of what was his natural right.

11. Peace is the wish of the French of Italy Spain Germany and all the world, and Great Britain alone the cause of preventing its accomplishment, and this not for any point of honour or even interest, but merely lest there should be an example in the modern world of a great powerful Republic.

12. Our Sovereign's Health, the Majesty of the People.