Quotes from book
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents

Name: Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents
Author: Edmund Burke

Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents is a political pamphlet by the Anglo-Irish politician and philosopher Edmund Burke, first published on 23 April 1770. The subject is the nepotism of King George III and the influence of the Court on the House of Commons of Great Britain. The essay was influential in defining political parties and their roles within government. In it, Burke argued that parties are "bod[ies] of men united for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed".

“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”

Edmund Burke book Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents

Volume i, p. 526; see #Disputed below.
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770)
Source: Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents: Volume 1 Paperback: 001

“Public life is a situation of power and energy; he trespasses against his duty who sleeps upon his watch, as well as he that goes over to the enemy.”

Edmund Burke book Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents

Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770)

“So to be patriots as not to forget we are gentlemen.”

Edmund Burke book Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents

Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770)

“Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures.”

Edmund Burke book Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents

Volume i, p. 531
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770)

“It is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals that their maxims have a plausible air; and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as copper coin; and about as valuable. They serve equally the first capacities and the lowest; and they are, at least, as useful to the worst men as to the best. Of this stamp is the cant of not man, but measures; a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honourable engagement.”

Edmund Burke book Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents

Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770)

“In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed, and the boldest staggered. The circumstances are in a great measure new. We have hardly any land-marks from the wisdom of our ancestors, to guide us. At best we can only follow the spirit of their proceeding in other cases.”

Edmund Burke book Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents

Volume i, p. 516
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770)
Context: The power of discretionary disqualification by one law of Parliament, and the necessity of paying every debt of the Civil List by another law of Parliament, if suffered to pass unnoticed, must establish such a fund of rewards and terrors as will make Parliament the best appendage and support of arbitrary power that ever was invented by the wit of man. This is felt. The quarrel is begun between the Representatives and the People. The Court Faction have at length committed them. In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed, and the boldest staggered. The circumstances are in a great measure new. We have hardly any land-marks from the wisdom of our ancestors, to guide us. At best we can only follow the spirit of their proceeding in other cases.