Real knowledge never promoted either turbulence or unbelief; but its progress is the forerunner of liberality and enlightened toleration.
—Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux
Topics: Knowledge
There is a law above all human enactments, written upon the heart by the finger of God; and while men despise fraud, and loathe rapine, and abhor blood, they shall reject with indignation the wild and guilty phantasy, that man can hold property in man.
—Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux
Topics: Slavery
There have been periods when the country heard with dismay that “the soldier was abroad.” That is not the case now. Let the soldier be abroad; in the present age he can do nothing. Let the soldier be abroad if he will, he can do nothing in this age. There is another personage,—a personage less imposing in the eyes of some, perhaps insignificant. The schoolmaster is abroad, and I trust to him, armed with his primer, against the soldier in full military array, for upholding and extending the liberties of his country.
—Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux
Topics: Teachers, Teaching, Education
The true test of a great man—that, at least, which must secure his place among the highest order of great men—is, his having been in advance of his age.
—Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux
Topics: Greatness
Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern but impossible to enslave.
—Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux
Topics: Government, Life, Education
I trust everything, under God, to habit, upon which, in all ages, the law giver as well as the schoolmaster has mainly placed his reliance; habit which makes everything easy, and casts all difficulties upon the deviation from the wonted course. Make sobriety a habit, and intemperance will be hateful and hard; make prudence a habit, and reckless profligacy will be as contrary to the nature of the child, grown to be an adult, as the most atrocious crimes are to any of your lordships. Give a child the habit of sacredly regarding the truth, of carefully respecting the properly of others, of scrupulously abstaining from all acts of improvidence which can involve him in distress, and he will just as likely think of rushing into an element in which he cannot breathe, as of lying, or cheating, or stealing.
—Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux
Topics: Habit
A lawyer is a gentlemen that rescues your estate from your enemies and then keeps it to himself.
—Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux
Topics: Justice, Lawyers, Law
It is well to read everything of something, and something of everything.
—Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux
Topics: Books, Reading
I abominate war as unchristian. I hold it to be the greatest of human crimes, and to involve all others—violence, blood, rapine, fraud—everything that can deform the character, alter the nature, and debase the name of man.
—Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux
Topics: War
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir Scottish Novelist
- Thomas Henry Huxley English Biologist
- Winston Churchill British Head of State
- Charles Darwin British Naturalist
- William Ewart Gladstone English Liberal Statesman
- Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh British Prince
- J. M. Barrie Scottish Novelist
- Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton British Author, Politician
- Francis Jeffrey, Lord Jeffrey Scottish Judge, Critic
- Augustine Birrell English Politician, Essayist
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