35 Junius Quotes

Junius quotes

1. One precedent creates another. They soon accumulate and constitute law. What yesterday was fact, today is doctrine.

2. The liberty of the press is the palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights of an Englishman.

3. The submission of free people to the executive authority of government, is no more than a compliance with laws which they themselves have enacted.

4. Loyalty, in the heart and understanding of an englishman, is a rational attachment to the guardian of the laws.

5. I believe there is yet a spirit of resistance in this country, which will not submit to be oppressed; but I am sure there is a fund of good sense in this country, which cannot be deceived.

6. We owe it to our ancestors to preserve entire those rights, which they have delivered to our care: we owe it to our posterity, not to suffer their dearest inheritance to be destroyed.

7. When the constitution is openly invaded, when the first original right of the people, from which all laws derive their authority, is directly attacked, inferior grievances naturally lose their force, and are suffered to pass by without punishment or observation.

8. There is a moment of difficulty and danger at which flattery and falsehood can no longer deceive, and simplicity itself can no longer be misled.

9. They [the Americans] equally detest the pageantry of a king, and the supercilious hypocrisy of a bishop.

10. There is a holy mistaken zeal in politics as well as in religion. By persuading others, we convince ourselves.

11. The least considerable man among us has an interest equal to the proudest nobleman, in the laws and constitution of his country, and is equally called upon to make a generous contribution in support of them - whether it be the heart to conceive, the understanding to direct, or the hand to execute.

12. We lament the mistakes of a good man, and do not begin to detest him until he affects to renounce his principles.

13. The injustice done to an individual is sometimes of service to the public. Facts are apt to alarm us more than the most dangerous principles.

14. An honest man, like the true religion, appeals to the understanding, or modestly confides in the internal evidence of his conscience. The imposter employes force instead of argument, imposes silence where he cannot convince, and propagates his character by the sword.

15. The government of England is a government of law. We betray ourselves, we contradict the spirit of our laws, and we shake the whole system of English jurisprudence, whenever we entrust a discretionary power over the life, liberty, or fortune of the subject to any man, or set of men, whatsoever, upon a presumption that it will not be abused.

16. If individuals have no virtues, their vices may be of no use to us.

17. The temple of fame is the shortest passage to riches and preferment.

18. Oppression is more easily endured than insult.

19. How much easier is it to be generous than just.

20. Notable talents are not necessarily connected with discretion.

21. The integrity of men is to be measured by their conduct, not by their professions.

22. The subject who is truly loyal to the Chief Magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures.

1. Let all your views in life be directed to a solid, however moderate, independence; without it no man can be happy, nor even honest.

2. I hold myself indebted to any one from whose enlightened understanding another ray of knowledge communicates to mine. Really to inform the mind is to correct and enlarge the heart.

3. It is a maxim received in life that, in general, we can determine more wisely for others than for ourselves. The reason of it is so dear in argument that it hardly wants the confirmation of experience.

4. Compassion to an offender who has grossly violated the laws is, in effect, a cruelty to the peaceable subject who has observed them.

5. The right of election is the very essence of the constitution.

6. When a person is determined to believe something, the very absurdity of the doctrine confirms them in their faith.

7. The lives of the best of us are spent in choosing between evils.

8. As for the differences of opinion upon speculative questions, if we wait till they are reconciled, the action of human affairs must be suspended forever. But neither are we to look for perfection in any one man, nor for agreement among many.

9. It is not that you do wrong by design, but that you should never do right by mistake.

10. It is the coward who fawns upon those above him. It is the coward who is insolent whenever he dares be so.

11. Integrity is praised and then left out in the cold.

12. “All despotism is bad; but the worst is that which works with the machinery of freedom.”

13. “When once a man is determined to believe, the very absurdity of the doctrine does but confirm him in his faith.”