William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham famous quotes

03-23-2025

Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.
-- William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

#Mind #Politics #Unlimited
The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake, the winds may blow through it, the storm may enter, the rain may enter; but the king of England cannot enter.
-- William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

#Kings #Rain #Blow
Bowing, ceremonious, formal compliments, stiff civilities, will never be politeness; that must be easy, natural, unstudied; and what will give this but a mind benevolent and attentive to exert that amiable disposition in trifles to all you converse and live with?
-- William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

#Giving #Mind #Compliment
An eagerness and zeal for dispute on every subject, and with every one, shows great self-sufficiency, that never-failing sign of great self-ignorance.
-- William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

#Ignorance #Self #Failing
Where laws end, tyranny begins.
-- William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

#Law #Ends #Tyranny
I know that I can save this country and that no one else can.
-- William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

#Country
Concession comes with better grace and more salutary effect from superior power.
-- William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

#Peace #Grace
Unlimited power corrupts the possessor; and this I know, that, where law ends, there tyranny begins.
-- William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

#Law #Power Corrupts #Unlimited
The little I know of it has not served to raise my opinion of what is vulgarly called the Monied Interest; I mean, that blood-sucker, that muckworm, that calls itself the friend of government.
-- William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

#Business #Mean #Blood
I would have it inscribed on the curtains of your bed and the walls of your chamber: "If you do not rise early you can make progress in nothing."
-- William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

#Wall #Progress #Bed
Theoretical principals must sometimes give way for the sake of practical advantages.
-- William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

#Giving #Sake #Way
The atrocious crime of being a young man . . . I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny.
-- William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham

#Men #Crime #Young

You may also like:

Benjamin Franklin
Founding Father of the United States
Duke of Wellington
Former First Lord of the Treasury
George Canning
Former Foreign Secretary
George Grenville
British statesman
George III
Monarch
George Whitefield
Preacher
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston
Former Foreign Secretary
James Otis
Lawyer
James Wolfe
Major
Patrick Henry
Governor of Virginia
Robert Clive
Major
Robert Peel
Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Robert Walpole
Former Great Britain. Prime Minister.
Samuel Adams
Founding Father of the United States
Samuel de Champlain
Navigator
Thomas Hutchinson
Politician
William E. Gladstone
Former Chancellor of the Exchequer
William Pitt
Former Chancellor of the Exchequer
William Wilberforce
British Politician
Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth
Home Secretary