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Charles James Fox

Charles James Fox (24 January 1749 – 13 September 1806) was a British Whig politician most noted for his support of the American and French Revolutions.

1770s

 * What acquaintance have the people at large with the arena of political rectitude, with the connections of kingdoms, the resources of national strength, the abilities of ministers, or even with their own dispositions?...I pay no regard whatever to the voice of the people: it is their duty to do what is proper, without considering what may be agreeable.
 * Speech in the House of Commons (25 March 1771), reprinted in J. Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume I (1815), pp. 13–14.

 * Religion was best understood when least talked of.
 * Speech in the House of Commons (7 February 1773), quoted in Lord John Russell (ed.), Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox. Volume I (London: Richard Bentley, 1853), p. 71.

 * Kings govern by means of popular assemblies only when they cannot do without them.
 * Speech to the House of Commons (October 31, 1776).

 * ...against which we should direct all our force, the navy of France: in the destruction of her marine we might see some hope of recovering America; but while our army remained in that country, we were to expect nothing from its operations. On the continent of Europe, it might be employed; there we might contend with France, in a manner that would make her feel that her own consequence was at stake. But the old Whig system of alliances on the continent had been given up, and we were left to fight all our battles by ourselves. If these alliances were renewed, France might then be taught, that rashness, not prudence, had made her enter into the American confederacy...America...might be won in Europe, while England might be ruined in America.
 * Speech in the House of Commons (14 December 1778), reprinted in the The Parliamentary History of England, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803. Vol. XX (London: 1814), p. 79.

 * There is no man who hates the power of the crown more, or who has a worse opinion of the Person to whom it belongs than I.
 * Letter to Edmund Burke (24 January 1779), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 41.

1780s

 * ...the question now was...whether that beautiful fabric [the English constitution]...was to be maintained in that freedom...for which blood had been spilt; or whether we were to submit to that system of despotism, which had so many advocates in this country.
 * Speech in the House of Commons (24 April 1780), reprinted in J. Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume I (1815), p. 261.

 * Gentlemen, the malicious and groundless Reports which have been spread, make it necessary for me to assure you, that notwithstanding all that has been said, I never have supported, nor ever will support, any Measure which can by any Means be prejudicial to the Protestant Religion, or in any way tend to establish Popery in this Kingdom.
 * Statement to his constituents after the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots (14 September 1780)

 * It is intolerable that it should be in the power of one blockhead to do so much mischief.
 * Fox on George III in a letter to Mr. Fitzpatrick (9 September 1781), quoted in John Brooke, George III (Panther, 1974), pp. 363-364.

 * [Fox] exhibited two pictures of this country; the one representing her at the end of the last glorious war, the other at the present moment. At the end of the last war this country was raised to a most dazzling height of splendour and respect. The French marine was in a manner annihilated, the Spanish rendered contemptible; the French were driven from America; new sources of commerce were opened, the old enlarged; our influence extended to a predominance in Europe, our empire of the ocean established and acknowledged, and our trade filling the ports and harbours of the wondering and admiring world. Now mark the degradation and the change, We have lost thirteen provinces of America; we have lost several of our Islands, and the rest are in danger; we have lost the empire of the sea; we have lost our respect abroad and our unanimity at home; the nations have forsaken us, they see us distracted and obstinate, and they leave us to our fate. Country! ...This was your situation, when you were governed by Whig ministers and by Whig measures, when you were warmed and instigated by a just and a laudable cause, when you were united and impelled by the confidence which you had in your ministers, and when they were again strengthened and emboldened by your ardour and enthusiasm. This is your situation, when you are under the conduct of Tory ministers and a Tory system, when you are disunited, disheartened, and have neither confidence in your ministers nor union among yourselves; when your cause is unjust and your conductors are either impotent or treacherous.
 * Speech in the House of Commons (27 November 1781), reprinted in J. Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume I (1815), p. 429.

 * On speaking to Mr. Fox (who had just received the seals as Secretary of State) on the important event of the day, he said certainly things look very well, but he, meaning the K[ing], will dye soon, and that will be best of all.
 * Fox to Lord Carmarthen (27 March 1783), quoted in Oscar Browning (ed.), The Political Memoranda of Francis Fifth Duke of Leeds (Camden Society, 1884), pp. 65-66, n.

 * [I] charged Mr. Pitt with having come into office upon unconstitutional grounds, and upon such principles as were disgraceful to himself, disgusting to the country, and such as must necessarily deprive him and his coadjutors of the confidence of that House.
 * Speech in the House of Commons (12 January 1784), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 75.

 * The true simple question of the present dispute is, whether the House of Lords and Court Influence shall predominate over the House of Commons, and annihilate its existence, or whether the House of Commons...shall have power to....regulate the prerogative of the Crown, which was ever ready to seize upon the freedom of the Electors of this country.
 * Speech to his constituents in Westminster (1784), quoted in W. T. Laprade, 'William Pitt and the Westminster Election', American Historical Review, 23 (1912), p. 263.
 * The worst of revolutions is a restoration.
 * Speech to the House of Commons (December 10, 1785).

 * I stand, said Mr. Fox, upon this great principle. I say that the people of England have a right to control the executive power, by the interference of their representatives in this House of parliament. The right honourable gentleman [William Pitt] maintains the contrary. He is the cause of our political enmity.
 * Speech in the House of Commons (27 February 1786), reprinted in J. Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume III (1815), p. 201.

 * [The situation was] as in the case of his majesty's having undergone a natural and perfect demise...There was then a person in the kingdom different from any other person that any existing precedents could refer to—an heir apparent of full age and capacity to exercise the royal power. It behoved them, therefore, to waste not a moment unnecessarily, but to proceed with all becoming speed and all becoming diligence to restore the sovereign power and the exercise of royal authority.
 * Speech in the House of Commons (10 December 1788) advocating the Prince of Wales being appointed Regent, reprinted in J. Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume III (1815), pp. 400-401.

 * We shall have several hard fights in the H. of Cs. this week and next, in some of which I fear we shall be beat, but whether we are or not I think it certain that in about a fortnight we shall come in; If we carry our questions we shall come in in a more creditable and triumphant way, but at any rate the Prince must be Regent and of consequence the Ministry must be changed...I am rather afraid they will get some cry against the Prince for grasping as they call it at too much power, but I am sure that I can not in conscience advise him to give up any thing that is really necessary to his Government, or indeed to claim any thing else as Regent, but the full power of a King, to which he is certainly entitled.
 * Letter to Mrs. Armistead (15 December 1788), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 84.

 * How much the greatest event it is that ever happened in the world! and how much the best!
 * Letter to Mr. Fitzpatrick on the fall of the Bastille (30 July 1789), printed in J. Russell (ed.), Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox. Volume II (London: Richard Bentley, 1853), p. 361.

1790s

 * ...he was indebted to his right honourable friend [Edmund Burke] for the greatest share of the political knowledge he possessed,—his political education had been formed under him,—his instructions had invariably governed his principles.
 * Speech in the House of Commons (2 March 1790).

 * Persecution always says, 'I know the consequences of your opinion better than you know them yourselves.' But the language of toleration was always amicable, liberal, and just: it confessed its doubts, and acknowledged its ignorance … Persecution had always reasoned from cause to effect, from opinion to action, [that such an opinion would invariably lead to but one action], which proved generally erroneous; while toleration led us invariably to form just conclusions, by judging from actions and not from opinions.
 * Speech in the House of Commons (2 March 1790), quoted in Loren Reid, Charles James Fox: A Man for the People (1969), p. 261.

 * Toleration in religion was one of the great rights of man, and a man ought never to be deprived of what was his natural right.
 * Speech in the House of Commons (19 April 1791), quoted in J. Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume IV (1815), p. 192.
 * Any thing that proves that it is not in the power of Kings and Princes by their great armies to have every thing their own way is of such good example that without any good will to the French one can not help being delighted by it, and you know I have a natural partiality to what some people call rebels.
 * Letter to Mrs. Armitstead (7 October 1792), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 125.

 * He would never forgo inquiry into the causes of the war, and measures to prevent similar calamities in future. This was due to the people, least, in the enjoyment of peace, they should forget their former sufferings from war, and again yield themselves up to delusion. Both the present and the American war were owing to a court party in this country, that hated the very name of liberty; and to an indifference, amounting to barbarity, in the minister, to the distresses of the people. It was some consolation to him that he had done his utmost to prevent the war, and to know that those who provoked it could not but feel, even while they were endeavouring to persuade others of the contrary, that they must, in no very long space of time, adopt the very course which he was recommending as fit to be adopted now.
 * Speech in the House of Commons (30 December 1794), quoted in J. Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume V (1815), p. 339-340.

 * ...a greater evil than the restoration of the Bourbons to the world in general, and England in particular, can hardly happen.
 * Letter to Lord Holland (28 July 1795), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 160.

 * Peace is the wish of the French of Italy Spain Germany and all the world, and Great Britain alone the cause of preventing its accomplishment, and this not for any point of honour or even interest, but merely lest there should be an example in the modern world of a great powerful Republic.
 * Letter to Lord Holland (7 August 1795), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), pp. 161-162.

 * But at no one time had he given an unqualified opinion of the governments which succeeded that event [the abolition of the French monarchy]; much less would he stand pledged to give the least countenance to the scenes of blood and cruelty which had been the almost inseparable attendants on the varied and successive governments that followed one another. He formed his opinion of government by the test of practice, and not by the theory and on paper.
 * Speech in the House of Commons (29 October 1795), reprinted in J Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume V (1815), p. 505.

 * There appears to me to be no device at present but between an absolute surrender of the liberties of the People and a vigorous exertion...My view of things is I own very gloomy, and I am convinced that in a few years this Government will become completely absolute, or that confusion will arise of a nature almost as much to be deprecated as despotism itself...This is a great Crisis.
 * Letter to Lord Holland (15 November 1795), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 140.

 * Our Sovereign's Health, the Majesty of the People.
 * Toast given at the Whig Club (1 May 1798), quoted in John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt. The Consuming Struggle (London: Constable, 1996), p. 116. The King struck off Fox's name from the list of Privy Councillors in response. Fox also gave the toast "may the ancient Nobility of England ever think it their highest honour to support the Rights of the People".

1800s

 * That a great General like Bonaparte should be inclined to military means of effecting a military Government is less to be wondered at than lamented...by taking the common & beaten path of Ambition he has...done much against the liberty of mankind in every part of the world...The only good that could come from this Event, so pernicious to the cause of general Liberty, was Peace, and that you see our Ministers are determined to refuse.
 * Letter to Christopher Wyvill (8 January 1800), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 166.

 * [Napoleon has now] surpassed...Alexander & Caesar, not to mention the great advantage he has over them in the Cause he fights in.
 * Letter to Denis O'Bryen (16 July 1800), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 167.

 * As to Bonaparte, you know what my apprehensions always were, and I can not help thinking they are in a great degree verified. For though he may, and I hope he will, trounce the Austrians...yet it is impossible to deny that he has lost, or at least risqued the losing of an opportunity. Every man has his weak side, and I have always thought Bonaparte's was the thinking Austria more inclined to peace and more to be depended upon than She is. I hope to God he will not suffer from his errour.
 * Letter to R. Fitzpatrick (10 September 1800), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 168.

 * Why Egypt should be of such importance either to the French or to Us I never could discover and I have always thought the Expedition there the foolishest part, perhaps the only foolish part of Bonaparte's Conduct, unless perhaps he had some views in it connected with the internal Politicks of France of which we are not informed, or (which I have always suspected) that he had a desire to be out of the way of either accepting or refusing the command of an army destined to invade England.
 * Letter to H. E. Fox (15 May 1801), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 168.

 * It may be said that the conditions are glorious for the French Republic: it must be confessed that they are; and there is not a Briton but who ought honestly to rejoice that such is the fact. The people of France resisted, as they ought to do, the whole combination of powers who would have imposed upon them a constitution contrary to their own will. Their's was the cause of liberty—the cause of mankind at large. They had every obstacle to oppose which imagination can suggest—but they have triumphed over such obstacles—their cause has been crowned with an everlasting triumph...We have not, I acknowledge, obtained the objects for which the War was undertaken—so much the better—I rejoice that we have not. I like the Peace the more on this very account.
 * Speech to his constituents at the Shakespeare Tavern, Westminster (10 October 1801) on peace with Napoleonic France, reported in The Times (12 October 1801), p. 2.

 * ...for the truth is, I am gone something further in hate to the English Government than perhaps you and the rest of my friends are, and certainly further than can with prudence be avowed. The triumph of the French Government over the English does in fact afford me a degree of pleasure which it is very difficult to disguise.
 * Letter to Lord Grey (22 October 1801), quoted in E. A. Smith, Lord Grey. 1764-1845 (Alan Sutton, 1996), p. 86.

 * However it may have happened, it is an excellent thing, and I do not like it the worse for its being so very triumphant a peace for France...The sense of humiliation in the Government here will be certainly lost in the extreme popularity of the measure...this rascally people are quite overjoyed at receiving from Ministers what, if they had dared to ask it, could not have been refused them at almost any period of the war. Will the Ministers have the impudence to say that there was any time (much less that when Bonaparte's offer was refused) when we might not have had terms as good? Bonaparte's triumph is now complete indeed, and, since there is to be no political liberty in the world, I really believe he is the fittest person to be the master.
 * Letter to T. Maitland (1801), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), pp. 169-170.
 * As to War I can only say that my opinion is clearly that it will not be. I can tell you my reasons for this opinion in two sentences. 1st. I am sure that Bonaparte will do everything that he can to avoid it. 2nd. that, low as my opinion is of our Ministry, I cannot believe them quite so foolish as to force him to it, without one motive either of ambition or interest to incite them.
 * Letter to Lord Lauderdale (18 November 1802), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 177.

 * Bonaparte's wish is Peace, nay that he is afraid of war to the last degree.
 * Letter to Charles Grey (12 December 1802), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 201.

 * There is not a power in Europe, no not even Bonaparte's that is so unlimited [as the British monarchy].
 * Letter to Lord Holland (9 January 1804), quoted in L. G. Mitchell, Charles James Fox (London: Penguin, 1997), p. 194.

 * So fully am I impressed with the vast importance and necessity of attaining what will be the object of my motion this night, that if, during the almost forty years that I have had the honour of a seat in parliament, I had been so fortunate as to accomplish that, and that only, I should think I had done enough, and could retire from public life with comfort, and the conscious satisfaction, that I had done my duty.
 * Speech in the House of Commons (10 June 1806) on the Abolition of the Slave Trade, quoted in J. Wright (ed.), The Speeches of the Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox in the House of Commons. Volume VI (1815), p. 659.

 * I die happy.
 * Last words. Quoted in Lord John Russell Life and Times of C J Fox, Vol.3 (1860), Ch. 9.

Attributed

 * ...the following passage from Major Cartwright's Memorandum Book: “On Sunday the 10th of April, 1814, Earl Stanhope informed me that in conversation with Mr. Fox and a third person, Mr. Fox said ‘Parliamentary reform was a fit thing to be made use of in argument in the House of Commons, but not to be carried into execution.’” Lord Stanhope also mentioned the same fact to Major Cartwright's friend, Mr. Holt White, and in the same words.
 * F. D. Cartwright (ed.), The Life and Correspondence of Major Cartwright. Volume I (London: Henry Colburn, 1826), pp. 132-133, n.

Quotes about Fox

 * I will only mention one other circumstance as tending to show the fallacy of Mr. Bright's opinion. He quotes Charles James Fox as a great authority for peace. I happen to know, from the only living authority from whom that information could be derived—I happen to know that Charles James Fox, the great Minister who resisted the revolutionary war so long, told his colleagues each and severally, on his deathbed, that the great war in which they were then engaged could not be brought to a conclusion; he enjoined them to prosecute it with vigour, and I, among others, look back with gratitude to the results of that great contest.
 * The Duke of Argyll, speech in Dundee (11 November 1858), quoted in The Times (15 November 1858), p. 4

 * Charles James Fox, who, though through some of the perverse fortunes and accidents of political life, only held high office twice in his life, and in each case for a very brief time, was acknowledged by all good judges to be second to none among the Parliamentary speakers in what we are accustomed, and rightly, to describe as the Golden Age of British eloquence.
 * H. H. Asquith, speech in York (19 October 1927), quoted in The Times (20 October 1927), p. 9

 * [On 11 June 1784] I asked him [ Samuel Johnson ] if it was true as reported, that he had said lately, ‘I am for the King against Fox; but I am for Fox against Pitt.’ JOHNSON : ‘Yes, Sir; the King is my master; but I do not know Pitt; and Fox is my friend.’ ‘Fox, (added he,) is a most extraordinary man; here is a man (describing him in strong terms of objection in some respects according as he apprehended, but which exalted his abilities the more) who has divided the Kingdom with Caesar; so that it was a doubt whether the nation should be ruled by the sceptre of George the Third, or the tongue of Fox.’
 * James Boswell, Life of Johnson [1791] (2008), p. 1292

 * Come down 50 years nearer to our own time, and you find a statesman, not long in office, but still held in the affections of all persons of liberal principles in this country, and in his time representing fully the sentiments of the Liberal party—Charles James Fox (Cheers.) Mr. Fox, referring to the policy of the Government of his time, which was one of constant interference in the affairs of Europe, and by which the country was continually involved in the calamities of war, said that although he would not assert or maintain the principle, that under no circumstances could England have any cause of interference with the affairs of the continent of Europe, yet he would prefer the positive policy of non-interference and of perfect isolation rather than the constant intermeddling to which our recent policy had subjected us, and which brought so much trouble and suffering upon the country.
 * John Bright, speech in Birmingham (29 October 1858), quoted in The Times (30 October 1858), p. 9

 * It was left...above all to Charles James Fox himself to defend the liberties of the subject, freedom of the press and of public meeting against the encroachments of a panicky Government. Fox was almost certainly wrong in his estimate of the danger from France, especially after Napoleon's coup d'état, and Whig opposition to the war had a tendency to degenerate into factiousness, but his defence of liberty was a vindication both of his own courage and of the liberal tradition.
 * Alan Bullock and Maurice Shock, ‘Introduction’, The Liberal Tradition: From Fox to Keynes [1956] (1967), p. xxi

 * It is impossible to read the speeches of Fox, at this time, without feeling one's heart yearn with admiration and gratitude for the bold and resolute manner in which he opposed the war, never yielding and never repining, under the most discouraging defeats; and, although deserted by many of his friends in the house, taunted with having only a score of followers left, and obliged to admit that he could not walk the streets without being insulted, by hearing the charge made against him of carrying on an improper correspondence with the enemy in France, yet bearing it all with uncomplaining manliness and dignity. The annals of Parliament do not record a nobler struggle in a nobler cause.
 * Richard Cobden, 1793 and 1853, in Three Letters (1853), p. 21

 * Charles Fox...[had] the combination of gifts which made him the most attractive Englishman who ever gave his mind to parliamentary politics. Somehow the influence which persuaded Edward Gibbon to say, “Let him do what he will; I must love the dog,” has been transmitted down to us, and somehow, too, the cause of English liberty which he made peculiarly his own embodies the glow of his personality... Fox himself felt the democratic potency of those contests and gave emphasis to it in his own words: “It is the energy, the boldness of a man's mind, which prompts him to speak, not in private but in large and popular assemblies, that constitutes, that creates in a state, the spirit of freedom.” He drew strength and courage from the vast London crowds who swayed before him, and it was there he learned his hatred of censorship, repression, informers; his trust in the people.
 * Michael Foot, ‘Charles James Fox’, The Guardian (25 November 1990), quoted in The Uncollected Michael Foot: Essays Old and New, ed. Brian Brivati (2003), pp. 282–283

 * Little did I think that I should ever live to regret Mr. Fox's death.
 * King George III, remark to Lord Sidmouth (c. September 1806), quoted in George Pellew, The Life and Correspondence of the Right Honourable Henry Addington, First Viscount Sidmouth, Vol. II (1847), p. 435

 * In his tour of Switzerland (September 1788) Mr. Fox gave me two days of free and private society. He seemed to feel, and even to envy, the happiness of my situation; while I admired the powers of a superior man, as they are blended in his attractive character with the softness and simplicity of a child. Perhaps no human being was ever more perfectly exempt from the taint of malevolence, vanity, or falsehood.
 * Edward Gibbon, Memoirs of My Life and Writings, in Miscellaneous Works of Edward Gibbon, Vol. I, ed. Lord Sheffield (1796), p. 168

 * I heard him [Robert Peel] express a low opinion of Fox. So far as Fox's private character is concerned, Peel may have been right; but, as a public man, Fox had certainly a remarkable power of grasping general principles.
 * William Ewart Gladstone's remarks to Lionel Tollemache (29 January 1894), quoted in Lionel Tollemache, Talks with Mr. Gladstone (1898), p. 117

 * He was loud, turbulent, & threatening, at these times talking in a manner very unlike himself, & being extremely angry with all around Him— The Q: was now in no favor, He called Mr Pitt a rascal, & Mr Fox his Friend.
 * Robert Fulke Greville's diary, recording George III's remarks during a bout of mental illness (20 December 1788), quoted in The Diaries of Colonel The Hon. Robert Fulke Greville, Equerry to His Majesty George III, ed. F. McKno Bladon (1930), p. 128

 * What subject is there, whether of foreign policy or domestic interest, or that in the smallest degree affects our Constitution, which does not immediately associate itself with the memory of Mr. Fox; and what moment so fit to address to you the observations which may be thought proper on such an occasion, as that in which your feelings are most excited by the mention of his name?
 * Charles Grey, speech at the dinner to commemorate Fox at the Queen's Head Inn, Newcastle (31 December 1818), quoted in The Times (7 January 1819), p. 3

 * For not even our political sky is blacker than that under which Fox withstood the policy which devoted the strength of England to the appetites and the rancours of Europe, and diverted the splendid promise of the Revolution into the catastrophe of the Empire... He had surrendered to principle a popularity to retain which he had sacrificed everything else. He watched the dismal fulfilment of all his dark predictions, as the long-protracted war became each day more disastrous to liberty in Europe and at home... Those Englishmen who have inherited the Liberalism of Fox cannot reasonably complain if they share something of his hard lot... If Liberals choose the part of Fox, they cannot escape his eclipse. Mark the splendid waste of his genius—twenty years of his life exhausted in a fruitless struggle with the nightmares of a nation; his death surrounded by the abundant and unmistakable signs of the calamities he had seen written on the wall. Let Liberals measure their strength against the triumphant forces of Imperialism, and they can look for no better issue than a glorious defeat and the ineffectual stoicism of despair.
 * John Lawrence Hammond, ‘Colonial and Foreign Policy’, Liberalism and the Empire (1900), pp. 158–160

 * The giant race is extinct.
 * Francis Horner to Francis Jeffreys after Fox's death (15 September 1806), quoted in Memoirs of Francis Horner: With Selections from His Correspondence (1849), p. 180

 * Although Fox's private character was deformed by indulgence in vicious pleasures, it was in the eyes of his contemporaries largely redeemed by the sweetness of his disposition, the buoyancy of his spirits, and the unselfishness of his conduct. As a politician he had liberal sentiments, and hated oppression and religious intolerance. He constantly opposed the influence of the crown, and, although he committed many mistakes, and had in George III an opponent of considerable knowledge of kingcraft and immense resources, the struggle between him and the king, as far as the two men were concerned, was after all a drawn game...the coalition of 1783 shows that he failed to appreciate the importance of political principles and was ignorant of political science...Although his speeches are full of common sense, he made serious mistakes on some critical occasions, such as were the struggle of 1783–4, and the dispute about the regency in 1788. The line that he took with reference to the war with France, his idea that the Treason and Sedition bills were destructive of the constitution, and his opinion in 1801 that the House of Commons would soon cease to be of any weight, are instances of his want of political insight. The violence of his language constantly stood in his way; in the earlier period of his career it gave him a character for levity; later on it made his coalition with North appear especially reprehensible, and in his latter years afforded fair cause for the bitterness of his opponents. The circumstances of his private life helped to weaken his position in public estimation. He twice brought his followers to the brink of ruin and utterly broke up the whig party. He constantly shocked the feelings of his countrymen, and ‘failed signally during a long public life in winning the confidence of the nation’ ( LECKY, Hist. iii. 465 sq). With the exception of the Libel Bill of 1792, the credit of which must be shared with others, he left comparatively little mark on the history of national progress. Great as his talents were in debate, he was deficient in statesmanship and in some of the qualities most essential to a good party leader.
 * William Hunt, 'Fox, Charles James (1749–1806)', Dictionary of National Biography (1889)

 * Fox could speak for four hours at a stretch without repeating himself, and in prose so magnificent that it makes the blood race simply to read it—what it must have sounded like beggars the imagination. What is more, Fox could do that after staying up all night gaming and drinking.
 * Bernard Levin, 'Jumping the gun, but not with Mr Fox', The Times (25 June 1975), p. 14

 * He could be irresponsible, he was certainly reckless, and, on occasion, he was a flagrant opportunist. He can rightly be accused of achieving in his lifetime little of what he so eloquently sought. But he was also warm-hearted, generous and immensely gifted; a richly endowed human being, whose principles have become synonymous with individual and political liberty. His posthumous influence has been enormous. For his arguments—however radical, however politically inconvenient, however ahead of their time—were incontestably right. As Pitt once wearily conceded, "Mr. Fox has never been answered". His arguments on the slave trade, on religious freedom, on the freedom of speech and of assembly, on constitutional reform and in opposition to war were—in the light of eternity—unanswerable. He could be outvoted, he could be out-manoeuvred, he could be checked. But he could not be silenced and—ultimately—he could not be stopped.
 * Neil McKendrick, '‘I must still love the dog’', The Times (3 May 1969), p. 22

 * Fame had informed me of his talents, and I soon found that he possessed a noble character, a good heart, liberal, generous, and enlightened views. I considered him an ornament to mankind, and was very much attached to him. We often conversed together upon various topics, without the least prejudice; when I wished to engage in a little controversy, I turned the conversation upon the subject of the infernal machine; and told him that his ministers had attempted to murder me; he would then oppose my opinion with warmth, and invariably ended the conversation by saying, in his bad French, “First Consul, pray take that out of your head.” But he was not convinced of the truth of the cause he undertook to advocate, and there is every reason to believe that he argued more in defence of his country, than of the morality of its ministers.
 * Napoleon (10 June 1816), quoted in Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné comte de Las Cases, Memorial de Sainte Hélène: Journal of the private life and conversations of the emperor Napoleon at Saint Helena, Volume 2, Parts 3-4 (1823), p. 73

 * As to Fox, one must not look for his model among the ancients. He is himself a model, and his principles will sooner or later rule the world. ... Certainly the death of Fox was one of the fatalities of my career. Had his life been prolonged, affairs would have taken a totally different turn; the cause of the people would have triumphed, and we should have established a new order of things in Europe.
 * Napoleon (6 November 1816), quoted in Emmanuel-Auguste-Dieudonné comte de Las Cases, Memorial de Sainte Hélène: Journal of the private life and conversations of the emperor Napoleon at Saint Helena, Volume 4, Part 7 (1823), p. 97

 * Froude's palliation of the intolerable egoistic, magniloquent tyranny of Henry VIII is as misplaced as the sympathy of many Whig historians for that thoroughly unscrupulous and factious political adventurer who did his best to hinder British war-effort in the early days of the struggle against Revolutionary France. I cannot bear the sonorous champion of liberty who outside the senate house spends his time with wine, women and gambling.
 * Charles Oman, Memories of Victorian Oxford and of Some Early Years (1941; 3rd ed. 1942), p. 163

 * Had Fox lived in times less troublesome than those in which he was thrown—or had he not been opposed to such a rival as Pitt—he would, undoubtedly, have been ranked not only among those statesmen the brilliancy of whose genius has reflected honour upon the country that produced them, but among those illustrious patriots whose names, consecrated by the applause of a grateful people, are held up to the admiration of posterity as fathers of their country and benefactors of the human race. He set out in life by being the supporter of the royal prerogative, and took part with the Crown against Wilkes. But being thrown into opposition by Pitt, he quitted a line in which he saw his rival would eclipse him, and became a strenuous advocate for the rights of the popular part of our constitution. In this course the ardour of his temper carried him further than prudence could justify; and, as it generally happens in controversies, he frequently in the violence of debate supported doctrines which, perhaps, his cooler reflection would have led him to disavow. With this impetuosity of temper it is less to be wondered at than regretted that, in the general delirium produced by the French Revolution, he should have been infected with the disorder, and have connected himself with the most frantic of the reformers. It was well remarked in one of the papers of the day, that there scarcely ever lived a statesman for whom as an individual the people felt more affection, or in whom as a politician they placed less confidence.
 * Lord Palmerston, journal entry (16 September 1806), quoted in Evelyn Ashley, The Life and Correspondence of Henry John Temple Viscount Palmerston: Vol. I (1879), pp. 22–23

 * In 1805...the Catholic question was again discussed. He would beg the House to attend to the speeches which were delivered on that occasion, one of which he should never forget, for he happened to have heard it.—He never heard a speech which made a greater impression on his mind, than that delivered by Mr. Fox during that debate.
 * Robert Peel, speech in the House of Commons (3 July 1828)

 * It was sometime in 1790 that Mirabeau, himself a moving and eloquent speaker, attempted to disparage Fox in Pitt's presence. Pitt replied simply: ‘You have never seen the wizard within the magic circle.’
 * Loren Dudley Reid, Charles James Fox: A Man for the People (1969), p. 268

 * Fox was a powerful speaker, and, in the words of Burke, the greatest debater the world ever saw. Not place or power, but reputation as an orator, was the object of his ambition, as he declares in one of his earliest letters to an intimate friend and relation. He inspired affection still more than admiration. In his worst days an observer said of his party, “There are only forty of them, but every one of them is ready to be hanged for Fox.” In his earlier days, Lord Mansfield being asked who that young man was whom he saw in Westminster Hall, answered, “That is the son of old Harry Fox, with twice his parts and half his sagacity.”
 * Lord John Russell, Recollections and Suggestions, 1813–1873 (1875), p. 304

 * The errors of Fox—his coalition with Lord North, and his India Bill—were grave; but the warmth of his feelings and his passionate love of liberty should obtain for his memory indemnity for these or even greater faults. His affectionate temper, combined with his love of liberty, won him the attachment of devoted friends. His name ought to be consecrated in the heart of every lover of freedom throughout the globe.
 * Lord John Russell, Recollections and Suggestions, 1813–1873 (1875), p. 305

 * George III. said to his daughter, the Princess Mary, afterwards Duchess of Gloucester, who told it to me, that he never thought he should have regretted the death of Fox so much as he found he did.
 * Lord John Russell, Recollections and Suggestions, 1813–1873 (1875), p. 342

 * Fox's Libel Act had reached the statute book in the temperate early months of 1792, making the jury the judge of the matter as well as of the fact. It was, perhaps, Fox's greatest service to the common people, passed at the eleventh hour before the tide turned towards repression.
 * E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (1963; rev. edn. 1968), p. 135

 * Bernard [Levin] thought Charles James Fox was the greatest politician of the 18th century. I said, "Ridiculous. He was wrong about everything," after Bernard had said that he was right about everything. "Even about not wanting to fight Napoleon?" I asked. Petronella likes Charles James Fox. They both like romantic rollicking characters. Charles James Fox seems a very similar character to Nye Bevan, flashing and spectacular but not enough substance. We all agree however that we would rather have Charles James Fox to dinner with us that night than William Pitt.
 * Woodrow Wyatt, journal entry (19 January 1987), quoted in The Journals of Woodrow Wyatt, Volume One, ed. Sarah Curtis (1999), p. 273

title: Charles James Fox


text:
Louis Kronenberger

Louis Kronenberger (December 9, 1904 – April 30, 1980) was an American critic and author. He was a drama critic for Time Magazine from 1938 to 1961 and theater arts professor at Brandeis University.

Company Manners: A Cultural Inquiry into American Life (1954)

 * On a very rough-and-ready basis we might define an eccentric as a man who is a law unto himself, and a crank as one who, having determined what the law is, insists on laying it down to others. An eccentric puts ice cream on steak simply because he likes it; should a crank do so, he would endow the act with moral grandeur and straightaway denounce as sinners (or reactionaries) all who failed to follow suit […] Cranks, at their most familiar, are a sort of peevish prophets, and it's not enough that they should be in the right; others must also be in the wrong.
 * "The One and the Many", Company Manners: A Cultural Inquiry into American Life (1954). Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill. 229 pages
 * Essay also appeared in Perspectives USA, Spring 1954

 * There seems to be a terrible misunderstanding on the part of a great many people to the effect that when you cease to believe you may cease to behave.
 * "The Spirit of the Age", p. 14.

 * The trouble with us in America isn't that the poetry of life has turned to prose, but that it has turned to advertising copy.
 * "The Spirit of the Age", p. 18.

 * The trouble with our age is all signposts and no destination.
 * p. 26.

 * In art there are tears that do often lie too deep for thoughts.
 * p. 28.
 * This is a play on "Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears", the last line of William Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood".

 * Ours must be the first age whose great goal, on a nonmaterial plane, is not fulfilment but adjustment; and perhaps just such a goal has served as maladjustment's weapon.
 * p. 65.

 * One of the misfortunes of our time is that in getting rid of false shame we have killed off so much real shame as well.
 * p. 76.

 * The Englishman wants to be recognized as a gentleman, or as some other suitable species of human being, the American wants to be considered a good guy.
 * p. 120.

 * Conformity may not always reign in the prosperous bourgeois suburb, but it ultimately always governs.
 * Company Manners: A Cultural Inquiry into American Life (1954), p. 122.

 * Individualism is rather like innocence; there must be something unconscious about it.

The Cart and the Horse (1964)

 * Once you have money, you can quite truthfully affirm that money isn't everything.

 * For young people today things move so fast there is no problem of adjustment. Before you can adjust to A, B has appeared leading C by the hand, and with D in the distance.

 * There are, of course, good happy endings as well as bad ones, but surely they are of a kind that in some way expresses happiness rather than glibly promises it..

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Louis Kronenberger


text:
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël

Anne Louise Germaine de Staël (April 22, 1766 – July 14, 1817), commonly known as Madame de Staël, was a French-speaking Swiss author living in Paris and abroad, who determined literary tastes of Europe at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Quotes

 * On cesse de s'aimer si quelqu'un ne nous aime.
 * We cease loving ourselves if no one loves us.
 * Sophie, or The Secret Sentiments (Sophie, ou les sentiments secrets, 1790), Act 2, sc. 8

 * L'amour est l'histoire de la vie des femmes; c'est un épisode dans celle des hommes.
 * Love is the whole history of a woman's life; it is an episode in a man's.
 * A Treatise on the Influence of the Passions (De l'influence des passions, 1796), Section 1, ch. 4

 * The evil arising from mental improvement can be corrected only by a still further progress in that very improvement. Either morality is a fable, or the more enlightened we are, the more attached to it we become.
 * The Influence of Literature upon Society (De la littérature considérée dans ses rapports avec les institutions sociales, 1800), Pt. 2, ch. 4

 * If we would succeed in works of the imagination, we must offer a mild morality in the midst of rigid manners; but where the manners are corrupt, we must consistently hold up to view an austere morality.
 * The Influence of Literature upon Society (1800), Pt. 2, ch. 5

 * One must, in one's life, make a choice between boredom and suffering.
 * Letter to Claude Hochet (Summer 1800), quoted in J. Christopher Herold, Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame de Staël (New York: Grove Press, 1958), p. 223
 * Herold comments: "Her decision was emphatically in favor of suffering, which after all was a pleasure compared to boredom." (p. 224)
 * The actual quotation is from a letter from Mme de Staël to Claude Hochet dated October 1, 1800 : «Il faut choisir dans la vie entre l’ennui et le tourment : je donne l’un et l’hiver l’autre» (Germaine de Staël, Correspondance générale. Tome IV. Première partie. Du directoire au Consulat. 1er décembre 1796-15 décembre 1800, texte établi et présenté par Béatrice W. Jasinski, Paris, Chez Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1976, xii/337 p., p. 326).

 * Un homme doit savoir braver l'opinion; une femme s'y soumettre.
 * A man must know how to fly in the face of opinion; a woman to submit to it.
 * Delphine (1802), epigraph
 * The epigraph is taken from the writings of de Staël's mother, Suzanne Necker.

 * It seems to me that life's circumstances, being ephemeral, teach us less about durable truths than the fictions based on those truths; and that the best lessons of delicacy and self-respect are to be found in novels where the feelings are so naturally portrayed that you fancy you are witnessing real life as you read.
 * Delphine (1802), Preface

 * In matters of the heart, nothing is true except the improbable.
 * Letter to Juliette Récamier (October 5, 1810), quoted in J. Christopher Herold, Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame de Staël (New York: Grove Press, 1958), p. 401

 * Superstition attaches to this life, and religion to the next; superstition is allied to fatality, and religion to virtue; it is from the vivacity of earthly desires that we become superstitious, and it is, on the contrary, by the sacrifice of these same desires that we are religious.
 * Ten Years' Exile (Dix années d'exil, written 1810–1813, posthumously published 1821), ch. 16

 * Life often seems like a long shipwreck, of which the débris are friendship, fame, and love.
 * Reflections on Suicide (Réflexions sur le suicide, 1813), Section 1

 * Madame de Staël thought it was pride in mankind to endeavour to penetrate the secret of the universe; and speaking of the higher metaphysics she said: "I prefer the Lord's Prayer to it all."
 * Sketch of the Life, Character, and Writings of Baroness de Staël-Holstein (1820) by Albertine-Adrienne Necker de Saussure, p. 349; often misquoted as, "I desire no other evidence of the truth of Christianity than the Lord's Prayer."

 * Sow good services: sweet remembrances will grow from them.
 * Quoted in A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom, and Wickedness (1880) collected and translated by J. D. Finod, p. 138

 * Men do not change; they unmask themselves.
 * Quoted in Invasion of the Party Snatchers : How the Holy-Rollers and the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP (2008) by Victor Gold

Corinne (1807)

 * Frivolity, under whatever form it appears, deprives attention of its power, thought of its originality, and sentiment of its depth.
 * Bk. 1, ch. 3

 * Tout ce qui est naturel est varié.
 * All that is natural is varied.
 * Bk. 1, ch. 4

 * When once enthusiasm has been turned into ridicule, everything is undone except money and power.
 * Bk. 4, ch. 3

 * You do not reach the sublime by degrees; the distance between it and the merely beautiful is infinite.
 * Bk. 4, ch. 3

 * La vue d'un tel monument est comme une musique continuelle et fixée, qui vous attend pour vous faire du bien quand vous vous en approchez.
 * The sight of such a monument is like continual and stationary music, which one hears for one's good as one approaches it.
 * Bk. 4, ch. 3
 * The idea that "architecture is frozen music" — an aphorism of disputed origin sometimes misattributed to de Staël — is found in a number of German writers of the period.

 * When men do wrong, it is out of hardness; when women do wrong, it is out of weakness.
 * Bk. 6, ch. 3

 * Genius is essentially creative; it bears the stamp of the individual who possesses it.
 * Bk. 7, ch. 1

 * Love is the emblem of eternity; it confounds all notion of time; effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end: we fancy that we have always possessed what we love, so difficult is it to imagine how we could have lived without it.
 * Bk. 8, ch. 2, as translated by Isabel Hill (1833)
 * Variant translation: It is certainly through love that eternity can be understood; it confuses all thoughts about time; it destroys the ideas of beginning and end; one thinks one has always been in love with the person one loves, so difficult is it to conceive that one could live without him.
 * As translated by Sylvia Raphael (1998)

 * Beauty is one in the universe, and, whatever form it assumes, it always arouses a religious feeling in the hearts of mankind.
 * Bk. 8, ch. 2

 * Let us then blend everything: love, religion, genius, with sunshine, perfume, music, and poetry.
 * Bk. 10, ch. 5

 * Atheism exists only in coldness, selfishness, and baseness.
 * Bk. 10, ch. 5

 * A religious life is a struggle and not a hymn.
 * Bk. 10, ch. 5

 * Danger is like wine, it goes to your head.
 * Bk. 12, ch. 2

 * O Earth! all bathed with blood and tears, yet never Hast thou ceased putting forth thy fruit and flowers.
 * Bk. 13, ch. 4, as translated by Letitia Elizabeth Landon for Isabel Hill (1833)

 * Ought not every woman, like every man, to follow the bent of her own talents?
 * Bk. 14, ch. 1

 * Tout comprendre rend très-indulgent.
 * Understanding everything makes one very indulgent.
 * Bk. 18, ch. 5

 * Be happy, but be so by piety.
 * Bk. 20, ch. 3

De l’Allemagne [Germany] (1813)

 * Innocence in genius, and candor in power, are both noble qualities.
 * Pt. 2, ch. 8

 * There is perhaps too much freedom in Protestantism to satisfy a certain religious austerity, which may seize upon the man who is overwhelmed by great misfortunes; sometimes even in the habitual course of life, the reality of this world disappears all at once, and we feel ourselves in the middle of its interests as we should at a ball, where we did not hear the music; the dancing that we saw there would appear insane.
 * Pt. 3, ch. 3, often paraphrased as And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

 * L'esprit consiste à connaître la ressemblance des choses diverses et la différence des choses semblables.
 * Wit lies in recognizing the resemblance among things which differ and the difference between things which are alike.
 * Pt. 3, ch. 8

 * La voix de la conscience est si délicate, qu'il est facile d'étouffer; mais elle est si pure, qu'il est impossible de la méconnaître.
 * The voice of conscience is so delicate that it is easy to stifle it; but it is also so clear that it is impossible to mistake it.
 * Pt. 3, ch. 13

 * La religion n'est rien si elle n'est pas tout, si l'existence n'en est pas remplie.
 * Religion is nothing, if it is not everything; if existence is not filled with it.
 * Pt. 4, ch. 1

 * L'admiration pour le beau se rapporte toujours à la Divinité.
 * The admiration of the beautiful always has relation to the Divinity.
 * Pt. 4, ch. 1

 * La recherche de la vérité est la plus noble des occupations, et sa publication un devoir.
 * The search for the truth is the noblest of occupations, and its publication a duty.
 * Pt. 4, ch. 2

 * Ces règles ne sont que des barrières pour empêcher les enfants de tomber.
 * The rules are only barriers to keep children from falling.
 * Pt. 4, ch. 9

 * Le sens de ce mot, chez les Grecs, en est la plus noble définition: l'enthousiasme signifie  Dieu en nous .
 * The sense of this word among the Greeks affords the noblest definition of it; enthusiasm signifies God in us.
 * Pt. 4, ch. 10

Disputed

 * The desire of the man is for the woman, but the desire of the woman is for the desire of the man.
 * Sometimes published as an anonymous saying, this was attributed to Bishop Samuel Wilberforce in Is It Nothing To You? Social Purity, A Grave Moral Question (1884) by Henry Rowley, p. 88; to Samuel Taylor Coleridge in "Would You Be Re-elected", Munsey's Magazine (April 1909), p. 769; and to de Staël in Aspects of Western Civilization : Problems and Sources in History (2003), p. 294

Misattributed

 * The human mind always makes progress, but it is a progress in spirals.
 * Probably a paraphrase of this line from De l’Allemagne, Pt. 3. ch. 10. "Goethe has made a remark upon the perfectability of the human mind, which is full of sagacity: It is always advancing, but in a spiral line." Not known from Goethe's works.

Quotes about de Staël

 * Feminist literary critics have shown how in the 19th century women writers began to acknowledge women as their muses and their role models...Elizabeth Barrett Browning admired the work of George Sand and Mme. de Staël, while her work, in its turn, was an inspiration to Emily Dickinson. Margaret Fuller and Sarah Orne Jewett acknowledged their indebtedness to Mme. de Staël, the author of Corinne...The list could be indefinitely extended to show the almost desperate search of writing women for authoritative female predecessors.
 * Gerda Lerner The Creation of Feminist Consciousness (1993)

title: Anne Louise Germaine de Staël


text:
User:Buyoof

Buyoof is [Link title][[Image:Link title]]]]]]reading Mathematics at Imperial College London.

His specialism is Applied Mathematics, and primarily it's use in Finance.ksdk kdn dxcnv,xvcnki12dsa3ijkes

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title: User:Buyoof


text:
User talk:Mst~enwikiquote

~ MosheZadka (Talk) 16:35, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
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Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Mst. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Mst~enwikiquote that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

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title: User talk:Mst~enwikiquote


text: Category:Art

title: Category:Art


text:
User talk:70.231.140.24

~ MosheZadka (Talk) 17:12, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:70.231.140.24


text:
Starhawk

Starhawk (born Miriam Simos on 17 June 1951) is an American writer, social activist and pagan in the Reclaiming tradition.

Quotes

 * I am a witch, by which I mean that I am somebody who believes that the earth is sacred, and that women and women's bodies are one expression of that sacred being. My spirituality has always been linked to my feminism. Feminism is about challenging unequal power structures. So, it also means challenging inequalities in race, class, sexual preference. What we need to be doing is not just changing who holds power, but changing the way we conceive of power. There is the power we're all familiar with — power over. But there is another kind of power — power from within. For a woman, it is the power to be fertile either in terms of having babies or writing books or dancing or baking bread or being a great organizer. It is the kind of power that doesn't depend on depriving someone else.
 * As quoted in Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion (1979) by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow

 * Much of what is written on the craft is biased in one way or another, so weed out what is useful to you and ignore the rest. I see the next few years as being crucial in the transformation of our culture away from the patriarchal death cults and toward the love of life, of nature, of the female principle. The craft is only one path among the many opening up for women, and many of us will blaze new trails as we explore the uncharted country of our own interiors. The heritage, the culture, the knowledge of the ancient priestesses, healers, poets, singers, and seers were nearly lost, but a seed survived the flames that will blossom in a new age into thousands of flowers. The long sleep of Mother Goddess is ended. May She awaken in each of our hearts — Merry meet, merry part, and blessed be.
 * As quoted in Womanspirit Rising: A Feminist Reader in Religion (1979) by Carol P. Christ and Judith Plaskow

 * The witches, the wise women, and the healers were also always the counselors. It's a whole other tradition of knowledge and learning that has been suppressed because it had political implications.
 * As quoted in The Burning Times (1990)

 * Each being is sacred — meaning that each has inherent value that cannot be ranked in a hierarchy or compared to the value of another being.
 * The Fifth Sacred Thing (1994), p. i

 * Any ritual is an opportunity for transformation. To do a ritual, you must be willing to be transformed in some way. The inner willingness is what makes the ritual come alive and have power. If you aren't willing to be changed by the ritual, don't do it.
 * As quoted in Infinity in Your Hand : A Guide for the Spiritually Curious (1994) by William H. Houff, p. 151

The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Goddess (1979)

 * Spirituality leaps where science cannot yet follow, because science must always test and measure, and much of reality and human experience is immeasurable.

 * In the Craft, we do not believe in the Goddess — we connect with her; through the moon, the stars, the ocean, the earth, through trees, animals, through other human beings, through ourselves. She is here. She is within us all.

 * The test of a true myth is that each time you return to it, new insights and interpretations arise.

 * Witchcraft offers the model of a religion of poetry, not theology. It presents metaphors, not doctrines, and leaves open the possibility of reconciliation of science and religion, of many ways of knowing.

 * The mythology and cosmology of Witchcraft are rooted in that “Paleolithic shaman’s insight”: that all things are swirls of energy, vortexes of moving forces, currents in an ever-changing sea. Underlying the appearance of separateness, of fixed objects within a linear stream of time, reality is a field of energies that congeal, temporarily, into forms. In time, all “fixed” things dissolve, only to coalesce again into new forms, new vehicles.

 * The primary principle of magic is connection. The universe is a fluid, everchanging energy pattern, not a collection of fixed and separate things. What affects one thing affects, in some way, all things: All is interwoven into the continuous fabric of being.

 * Energy flows in spirals. Its motion is always circular, cyclical, wavelike. The spiral motion is revealed in the shape of galaxies, shells, whirlpools, DNA. Sound, light, and radiation travel in waves—which themselves are spirals viewed in a flat plane. The moon waxes and wanes, as do the tides, the economy, and our own vitality. The implications of the spiral model are many. Essentially, it means that no form of energy can be exerted indefinitely in one direction only. Always, it will reach a peak, a point of climax, and then turn.

 * The Trickster represents the quality of randomness and chance in the universe, without which there could be no freedom. In the Craft the Goddess is not omnipotent. The cosmos is interesting rather than perfect, and everything is not part of some greater plan, nor is all necessarily under control. Understanding this keeps us humble, able to admit that we cannot know or control or define everything.

 * Any creative work that is truly alive is influenced by a thousand chance factors in its generation.

 * When power relations of domination are no longer the norm in society, and when men assume truly equal shares of all aspects of childrearing, perhaps we will be able to fully reclaim the nurturing aspects of the God. Until then, let us hope some men will begin this process by the way they lead their lives.

 * One of the great disservices a culture of domination has done to all of us is to confuse the erotic with domination and violence. The God is wild, but his is the wildness of connection, not of domination. Wildness is not the same as violence. Gentleness and tenderness do not translate into wimpiness. When men — or women, for that matter — begin to unleash what is untamed in us, we need to remember that the first images and impulses we encounter will often be the stereotyped paths of power we have learned in a culture of domination. To become truly wild, we must not be sidetracked by the dramas of power-over, the seduction of addictions, or the thrill of control. We must go deeper.

 * We need to fully feel and express our emotions without worrying that they are likely to cause harm to another. But intensely and obsessively brooding on one's anger or resentment is not a good thing to do.

 * The Conqueror, whose core issue is safety splits us into Conqueror and Enemy/Victim, tells us, "Don't trust!" and generates fear, paranoia, distortions of reality, and the need to annihilate enemies. The Conqueror seduces us by making us feel special, sometimes grandiose and self-righteous, sometimes especially weak and victimized.

 * The Judge, whose core issue is our sense of worth and value, splits us into Judge and Subject to be Judged. When possessed by the Judge, we live in a world of comparisons, competition, and punishment, constantly rate ourselves and others, feel jealousy and guilt. The Judge seduces us with the false promise that we can gain value if we obey, perform, produce.

 * The Orderer, whose core issue is control, splits us into Controller and Out-of-Control selves, tells us "Don't Feel", and generates anxiety, rigidity, and addictions. The Orderer seduces us with the belief that order can be imposed from without, that the answer to chaos is more rigid order.

 * The Censor, whose core issue is isolation and connection, splits us into Silencer and Secret-to-be-kept, tells us, "Don't speak of it; don't see it; you're the only one who ever felt that." Possessed by the Censor, we feel shame confusion, and blame, often for the victim, or we live in denial. The Censor deludes us with the belief that the pain we are in will go away if we don't name it or speak of it.

 * This is the stillness behind motion, when time itself stops; the center is also the circumference of all. We are awake in the night. We turn the Wheel to bring the light. We call the sun from the womb of night. Blessed Be!

 * The tide has turned! The light will come again! In a new dawn, in a new day, The sun is rising! Io! Evohe! Blessed Be!

Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex and Politics (1982)

 * Magic is another word that makes people uneasy, so I use it deliberately, because words they are comfortable with, the words that sound acceptable, rational, scientific, and intellectually sound, are comfortable precisely because they are the language of estrangement.
 * Ch. 1 : Power-Over and Power-From-WIthin, p. 13

 * When we practice magic we are always making connections, moving energy, identifying with other forms of being. Magic could be called the applied science that is based on an understanding of how energy makes patterns and patterns direct energy. To put it another way, at its heart is a paradox:
 * Consciousness shapes reality;
 * Reality shapes consciousness.
 * Ch. 1 : Power-Over and Power-From-WIthin, p. 13

 * To live with integrity in an unjust society we must work for justice. To walk with integrity through a landscape strewn with beer cans, we must stop and pick them up.
 * Ch. 3 : The Ethics of Magic, p. 41

 * Sexual integrity means honestly recognizing our own impulses and desires and honoring them, whether or not we choose to act on them. If we value integrity, we must also value diversity in sexual expression and orientation, recognizing that there is no one truth, or one way, that fits everyone. Sexuality is sacred because through it we make a connection with another self — but it is misused and perverted when it becomes an arena of power-over, a means of treating another — or oneself — as an object.
 * Ch. 3 : The Ethics of Magic, p. 41

 * We are all longing to go home to some place we have never been — a place half-remembered and half-envisioned we can only catch glimpses of from time to time. Community. Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion without having the words catch in our throats. Somewhere a circle of hands will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power. Community means strength that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done. Arms to hold us when we falter. A circle of healing. A circle of friends. Someplace where we can be free.
 * Ch. 6 : Building Community : Processes for Groups, p. 92

Bodhi Tree lecture (1999)

 * Bodhi Tree Bookstore presentation (December 1999); this contains some passages from her book The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess.

 * The Goddess religion asserts that the earth is alive, and that everything on the earth is part of a living being. We believe that you can celebrate life in many different images and forms, that life moves in cycles of birth and growth and death and rebirth, and that the same spirit moves through nature, through the cycles of the seasons, through the birth and growth and death of plants and animals, and through our lives as human beings. There is a multiplicity of images that you can draw upon for understanding and power, but the reason we focus on the goddess is partly to counterbalance the 5,000 years worth of focus on male holy images, and partly to affirm that bringing life into the world is sacred. Our goal is not to get out of the world or to get out of life, but to integrate it, to celebrate it, to embrace it fully, and to embrace all the different cycles within it

 * I'm going to end with a vision I have for the winter solstice: There are bonfires everywhere strung along the beaches, blazing on twin peaks on all the high places. In the parks and on rooftops small groups gather around cauldrons. There are no mass meetings, only circles.

 *  The Spiral Dance is a seed planted twenty years ago. Over the last two decades, the goddess movement has grown from many seeds like a garden of long-life flowers and healing herbs. It's a big garden — I've tended only one corner of it.

 * The word witch is related to the root of the word "willow," a very flexible tree. Since ancient times witches have been known as those who can bend or shape fate. We twist the energies. The idea of witch became synonymous with wise woman, and with others who were herbalists and healers and keepers of the old traditions after the advent of Christianity. We were the ones who really knew the land and knew what grew there, and how to use it.

 * The god is Eros, but he is also Logos, the power of the mind. In witchcraft there is no opposition between the two. The bodily desire for union and the emotional desire for connection are transmuted into the intellectual desire for knowledge, which is also a form of union. Knowledge can be both analytic and synthetic; it can take these apart and look at differences, or form a pattern from unintegrated parts and see the whole.

 * We join together to earth the power of the season and to slip between the worlds, the voices saying to every one of us, "Wake up, you are it, you are a part of the circle of the wise. There is no mystery that has not already been revealed to you. There is no power you do not already have. You share in all the love there is. The goddess awakens in infinite forms and a thousand disguises. She is found where she is least expected, appears out of nowhere and everywhere to illumine the open heart. She is singing, crying, moaning, wailing, shrieking, crooning to us, to be awake, to commit ourselves to life, to be a lover in the world and of the world, to join our voices in the single song of constant change and creation. For her law is to love all beings, and she is the cup of the drink of life. The circle is ever open, ever unbroken.

Toward an Activist Spirituality (2003)

 * Online text, from Reclaiming Quarterly (Fall 2003)

 * No sane person with a life really wants to be a political activist. When activism is exciting, it tends to involve the risk of bodily harm or incarceration, and when it's safe, it is often tedious, dry, and boring. Activism tends to put one into contact with extremely unpleasant people, whether they are media interviewers, riot cops, or at times, your fellow activists. Not only that, it generates enormous feelings of frustration and rage, makes your throat sore from shouting, and hurts your feet. Nonetheless, at this moment in history, we are called to act as if we truly believe that the Earth is a living, conscious being that we're part of, that human beings are interconnected and precious, and that liberty and justice for all is a desirable thing.

 * When we founded Reclaiming two decades ago, our intention was to bring together the spiritual and the political. Or more accurately, some of us for whom the spiritual and the political were inseparable wanted to create a practice and community that reflected this integration. Now, with the Bush forces pushing into an aggressive war, with horrific environmental and social problems left unaddressed, the need for activism is stronger than ever. The stakes have never been higher, and the sense of urgency is palpable.

 * Spirituality and ritual are not something removed from the world, but are deeply embedded in it. Reclaiming is founded on Earth-based spirituality, which rejects the split between spirit and matter, and claims nature and the physical, material world as equally sacred with the spirit.

 * We don't ideologically believe in the separation of spirit and matter, but in practice, we still tend to think that things that are too material, too real-life, are somehow not as spiritual. So a trance to Faery is perceived as "spiritual," whereas a trance to a Brazilian favela slum is not. We can argue about the reality of Faery, but the favela is undeniably real. If we truly believe that our spirituality is about deep interconnectedness, maybe it's more important for us to grapple internally with the reality of the favela than to dance with the faeries.

 * Much of our magic and our community work is about creating spaces of refuge from a harsh and often hostile world, safe places where people can heal and regenerate, renew our energies and learn new skills. In that work, we try to release guilt, rage, and frustration, and generally turn them into positive emotions. Safety and refuge and healing are important aspects of spiritual community. But they are not the whole of spirituality. Feeling good is not the measure by which we should judge our spiritual work. Ritual is more than self-soothing activity. Spirituality is also about challenge and disturbance, about pushing our edges and giving us the support we need to take great risks. The Goddess is not just a light, happy maiden or a nurturing mother. She is death as well as birth, dark as well as light, rage as well as compassion — and if we shy away from her fiercer embrace we undercut both her own power and our own growth.

 * There are times when it is inappropriate to feel wholly good. Now is one of them. As the saying goes, "If you aren't angry, you aren't paying attention." This doesn't mean that we need to be in a constant state of rage or irritability or guilt. It means we need to use our magical tools to face the stark and overwhelming realities that confront us, acknowledge our feelings, and transmute them into the energy we need for change.

 * Everyone has the right to their own opinion about a ritual, and to their own aesthetics. There's generally at least one invocation in every ritual that I could personally do without.

 * The water we hold sacred is not some abstract image or fantasy of Water, but the real stuff that we need to drink and bathe and grow our gardens, that provides the crucial habitat for fish and plants and thousands of other creatures, that is the Earth's literal life blood.

 * Another common, unspoken assumption is that spirituality is about calm and peace, and conflict is unspiritual. Which of course makes it hard to integrate the spiritual with the political, which is all about conflict. In New Age circles, a common slogan is that "What you resist, persists." Truly spiritual people are never supposed to be confrontational or adversarial — that would be perpetuating an unevolved, "us-them" dualism. I don't know from what spiritual tradition the "what you resist, persists" slogan originated, but I often want to ask those who blithely repeat it, "What's your evidence?" When it is so patently obvious that what you don't resist persists like hell and spreads all over the place. In fact, good, strong, solid resistance may be the only thing that stands between us and hell. Hitler didn't persist because of the Resistance — he succeeded in taking over Germany and murdering millions because not enough people resisted.

 * On some deep cosmic level, we are all one, and within us we each contain the potential for good and for destruction, for compassion and hate, for generosity and greed. But even if I acknowledge the full range of impulses within myself, that doesn't erase the differences between a person acting from compassion and love, and another choosing to act from hate and greed. Moreover, it doesn't erase my responsibility to challenge a system which furthers hate and greed. If I don't resist such a system, I am complicit in what it does. I join the perpetrators in oppressing the victims.

 * I am often astonished at well-meaning, spiritual people who advocate beaming light toward world leaders, who scold activists for expressing anger toward authorities or police, who define compassion as loving the enemy — but somehow lose sight of the need to love our friends, our allies, and those who suffer at the hands of the perpetrators. I really don't feel much call to beam love and light at Bush or Cheney or the directors of the International Monetary Fund. Whether or not they suffer from lack of love is beyond me. From my perspective, they suffer from an excess of power, and I feel called to take it away from them. Because I do love the child in Iraq, the woman in the favela, the eighteen-year-old recruit to the Marines who never dreamed he was signing up to bomb civilians. I can't love them, or myself and my community, effectively if I can't articulate the real differences in interests and agendas between "us" and "them" — between those who have too little social power and those who have too much.

 * Systems don't change easily. Systems try to maintain themselves, and seek equilibrium. To change a system, you need to shake it up, disrupt the equilibrium. That often requires conflict. To me, conflict is a deeply spiritual place. It's the high-energy place where power meets power, where change and transformation can occur.

 * Our magical tools and insights, our awareness of energies and allies on many planes, can deepen and inform our activism. And our activism can deepen our magic, by encouraging us to create ritual that speaks to the real challenges we face in the world, offers the healing and renewal we need to continue working, and a community that understands that spirit and action are one.

title: Starhawk