Junius was the pseudonym of an unidentified author of 69 letters to the Public Advertiser between 1769 and 1772. In addition to the scornful political and legal commentary, Junius’s letters were notorious for the mystery surrounding the author’s identity and for the inside information he seemed to possess.
Junius letters graduated from an argument with British Army officer Sir William Draper to recurring attacks on Prime Minister Augustus Henry Fitzroy, 3rd Duke of Grafton, and then a long-winded, offensive letter to King George III. Junius’s letters became a political sensation, boosting the sales of Public Advertiser.
The identity of Junius has never been categorically ascertained; some 45 candidates have been suggested. Many scholars tend to attribute his identification with the politician and pamphleteer Philip Francis (1740–1818,) then a senior clerk in the British War Office.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Junius
The vices operate like age; bringing on disease before its time, and in the prime of youth they leave the character broken and exhausted.
—Junius
An obstinate, ungovernable self-sufficiency plainly points out to us that state of imperfect maturity at which the graceful levity of youth is lost and the solidity of experience not yet acquired.
—Junius
It is an impudent kind of sorcery to attempt to blind us with the smoke, without convincing us that the fire has existed.
—Junius
One precedent creates another. — They soon accumulate, and constitute law. — What yesterday was fact, today is doctrine. — Examples are supposed to justify the most dangerous measures; and where they do not suit exactly, the defect is supplied by analogy.
—Junius
Topics: Facts
When once a man is determined to believe, the very absurdity of the doctrine does but confirm him in his faith.
—Junius
As to lawyers, their profession is supported by the indiscriminate defense of right and wrong.
—Junius
Topics: Lawyers
All despotism is bad; but the worst is that which works with the machinery of freedom.
—Junius
Vanity indeed is a venial error; for it usually carries its own punishment with it.
—Junius
There is a holy, mistaken zeal in politics, as well as in religion. By persuading others, we convince ourselves.
—Junius
As for the differences of opinion upon speculative questions, if we wait till they are reconciled, the action of human affairs must be suspended forever. — But neither are we to look for perfection in any one man, nor for agreement among many.
—Junius
Topics: Opinion
We owe it to our ancestors to preserve entire those rights they have delivered to our care. We owe it to our posterity not to suffer their dearest inheritance to be destroyed.
—Junius
It is the eternal truth in the political as well as the mystical body, that, where one members suffers, all the members suffer with it.
—Junius
Topics: Sympathy, Politics, Politicians
It is the coward who fawns upon those above him. It is the coward who is insolent whenever he dares be so.
—Junius
Topics: Cowardice
Even legal punishments lose all appearance of justice, when too strictly inflicted on men compelled by the last extremity of distress to incur them.
—Junius
Topics: Punishment
Guilt is a poor, helpless, dependent being. Without the alliance of able, diligent, and let me add, fortunate fraud, it is inevitably undone. If the guilty culprit be obstinately silent, it forms a deadly presumption against him; if he speaks, talking tends only to his discovery, and his very defence often furnishes the materials for his conviction.
—Junius
Topics: Guilt
How much easier it is to be generous than just! Men are sometimes bountiful who are not honest.
—Junius
The lives of the best of us are spent in choosing between evils.
—Junius
Topics: Decisions
Gratuitous violence in argument betrays a conscious weakness of the cause, and is usually a signal of despair.
—Junius
A very honest man, and a very good understanding, may be deceived by a knave.
—Junius
Be not affronted at a jest; if one throw ever so much salt at thee thou wilt receive no harm unless thou art raw and ulcerous.
—Junius
Topics: Jokes
Assertion, unsupported by fact, is nugatory. — Surmise and general abuse, is however elegant language, ought not to pass for truth.
—Junius
It is more than possible, that those who have neither character nor honor, may be wounded in a very tender part, their interest.
—Junius
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