Henry, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke St John Quotes

Henry, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke St John presents measured, philosophical musings on truth, pride and the limits of human knowledge.

10 quotes

1. Truth lies within a little and certain compass, but error is immense.

2. I have read somewhere or other,-in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, I think,-that history is philosophy teaching by examples.

3. Nations, like men, have their infancy.

4. They (Thucydides and Xenophon) maintained the dignity of history.

5. It is the modest, not the presumptuous, inquirer who makes a real and safe progress in the discovery of divine truths. One follows Nature and Nature's God; that is, he follows God in his works and in his word.

6. The landed men are the true owners of our political vessel, the moneyed men are no more than passengers in it

7. Patriotism must be founded on great principals and supported by great virtue.

8. Pride defeats its own end, by bringing the man who seeks esteem and reverence into contempt.

9. The greatest art of a politician is to render vice serviceable to the cause of virtue.

10. The shortest and surest way of arriving at real knowledge is to unlearn the lessons we have been taught, to mount the first principles, and take nobody's word about them.