
Letter to Edward Blount (27 August 1714); a similar expression in "Thoughts on Various Subjects" in Swift's Miscellanies (1727): Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few.
From Roscoe's edition of Pope, vol. v. p. 376; originally printed in Motte's Miscellanies (1727). In the edition of 1736 Pope says, "I must own that the prose part (the Thought on Various Subjects), at the end of the second volume, was wholly mine. January, 1734".
Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)
Letter to Edward Blount (27 August 1714); a similar expression in "Thoughts on Various Subjects" in Swift's Miscellanies (1727): Party is the madness of many, for the gain of a few.
“How did thinking that benefited the few gain the acceptance of the many?”
Source: Living In The Number One Country (2000), Chapter Four, Communication Theorists Of Empire, p. 108
“The dog, to gain some private ends,
Went mad, and bit the man.”
Source: The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Ch. 17, An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog, st. 5.
“The parties with the most gain never show up on the battlefield.”
Source: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (2007)
“Very few reputations are gained by unsullied virtue.”
The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) The Sins of Prince Saradine
The Father Brown Mystery Series (1910 - 1927)
“In 1970s Britain, conservative philosophy was the preoccupation of a few half-mad recluses.”
"Why I became a conservative," http://newcriterion.com:81/archive/21/feb03/burke.htm The New Criterion (February 2003).
BBC radio broadcast (17 October 1931)
“There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.”