William Pitt le Jeune citations

William Pitt le Jeune est un homme d'État britannique de la fin du XVIIIe et du début du XIXe siècle. Il devint le plus jeune Premier ministre britannique lors de son élection en 1783 à l'âge de 24 ans . Il quitte le poste en 1801 mais redevient Premier ministre de 1804 jusqu'à sa mort en 1806. Il occupa également le poste de chancelier de l'Échiquier tout au long de son mandat de Premier ministre. Il est appelé William Pitt le Jeune pour être distingué de son père, William Pitt l'Ancien, qui fut également Premier ministre de Grande-Bretagne. En 1782, il rejoint le gouvernement de William Petty FitzMaurice en tant que chancelier de l'Échiquier.

Le premier mandat de Pitt, sous le règne de George III du Royaume-Uni, fut dominé par d'importants événements en Europe dont la Révolution française et les guerres napoléoniennes. Pitt, bien que souvent désigné comme étant un tory, se considérait comme un « whig indépendant » et s'opposait généralement au développement d'un système politique partisan. Wikipedia  

✵ 28. mai 1759 – 23. janvier 1806
William Pitt le Jeune photo
William Pitt le Jeune: 19   citations 0   J'aime

William Pitt le Jeune: Citations en anglais

“I return you many thanks for the honour you have done me; but Europe is not to be saved by any single man. England has saved herself by her exertions, and will, as I trust, save Europe by her example.”

"The War Speeches of William Pitt", Oxford University Press, 1915, p. 351
Speech at the Guildhall, City of London, 9 November 1805. This was Pitt's last speech in public.

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”

Speech in the House of Commons (18 November, 1783). Compare: "And with necessity, / The tyrant's plea, / excus'd his devilish deeds", John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book iv, line 393.

“Roll up that map; it will not be wanted these ten years.”

Upon seeing a map of Europe in January 1806 after hearing of the Battle of Austerlitz. Quoted in Stanhope, Life of the Right Honourable William Pitt https://archive.org/stream/lifeofwilliampit03stan/lifeofwilliampit03stan_djvu.txt. See also the Yale Book of Quotations.
Attributed

“What I have now offered is meant merely for the sake of my country, for the simple question is: will you change your Ministers and keep the Empire, or keep your Ministers and lose the Kingdom?”

William Cobbett, "Parliamentary History".
Speech in the House of Commons, supporting a motion of censure on the government of Lord North, 15 March 1782.

“Most accursed, wicked, barbarous, cruel, unnatural, unjust and diabolical.”

Speech in Parliament on the American Revolutionary War (February 26, 1781), reported in Hansard (Vol. 22), p. 487, Debate on Mr. Fox's Motion for a Committee.

“Pitt: Never fear, Mr. Burke: depend on it we shall go on as we are, until the day of judgment.
Edmund Burke: Very likely, Sir. It is the day of no judgment that I am afraid of.”

Conversation at a dinner in 10 Downing Street (24 September 1791), quoted in George Pellew, The Life and Correspondence of the Right Hon. Henry Addington, First Viscount Sidmouth, Volume I (London: John Murray, 1847), p. 72.

“Not merely a chip of the old 'block', but the old block itself.”

Nathaniel Wraxall, "Historical Memoirs of My Own Time", part 2.
Edmund Burke's reaction to Pitt's maiden speech in Parliament. The 'old block' was William Pitt the Elder.
About

“We owe our present happiness and prosperity, which has never been equalled in the annals of mankind, to a mixture of monarchical government.”

"The War Speeches of William Pitt", Oxford University Press, 1915, p. 29
Speech in the House of Commons, 1 February 1793.

“Prostrate the beauteous ruin lies; and all
That shared its shelter perish in its fall.”

The Poetry of the Anti-Jacobin, No. xxxvi, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“I think I could eat one of Bellamy's mutton pies.”

Also "I think I could eat one of Bellamy's meat pies." Both in Rosebery, Pitt https://archive.org/stream/pittrose00roseuoft/pittrose00roseuoft_djvu.txt. Rosebery wrote that this story was related to him by Disraeli, who heard it as a young member of Parliament by a "grim old waiter of prehistoric reputation, who was supposed to possess a secret treasure of political tradition." According to Rosebery, "Disraeli mentioned the meat -- veal or pork I think, but I have forgotten." Reported in Rosebery, Pitt https://archive.org/stream/pittrose00roseuoft/pittrose00roseuoft_djvu.txt.

“Oh my country! How I love my country!”

Last words.
Lord Stanhope, Life of the Right Honourable William Pitt https://archive.org/stream/liferighthonour04stangoog/liferighthonour04stangoog_djvu.txt
Lord Rosebery reports it as "my country! how I leave my country!" in Pitt https://archive.org/stream/pittrose00roseuoft/pittrose00roseuoft_djvu.txt (London: Macmillan, 1891), and attributes "O my country! How I love my country!" to Benjamin Disraeli.
See also Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, pg 456.

“You may take from me, Sir, the privileges and emoluments of place, but you cannot, and you shall not, take from me those habitual and warm regards for the prosperity of Great Britain which constitute the honour, the happiness, the pride of my life, and which, I trust, death alone can extinguish.”

"The War Speeches of William Pitt", Oxford University Press, 1915, p. 7
Speech in the House of Commons, 21 February 1783, on the peace treaty with the United States. Pitt, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer, knew the government would lose the vote and he would have to resign.

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