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
Let all your views in life be directed to a solid, however moderate, independence; without it no man can be happy, nor even honest.
—Junius
Topics: Independence
It is more than possible, that those who have neither character nor honor, may be wounded in a very tender part, their interest.
—Junius
I hold myself indebted to any one from whose enlightened understanding another ray of knowledge communicates to mine.—Realty to inform the mind is to correct and enlarge the heart.
—Junius
Topics: Understanding
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
When once a man is determined to believe, the very absurdity of the doctrine does but confirm him in his faith.
—Junius
Topics: Persuasion
It is an impudent kind of sorcery to attempt to blind us with the smoke, without convincing us that the fire has existed.
—Junius
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, Coward
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
Topics: Vice
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: Politics, Sympathy, Politicians
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
Guilt alone, like brain-sick frenzy in its feverish mood, fills the light air with visionary terrors, and shapeless forms of fear.
—Junius
Topics: Guilt
A thorough and mature insensibility is rarely to be acquired but by a steady perseverance in infamy.
—Junius
Oppression is more easily borne than insult.
—Junius
Topics: Insults, Oppression
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
Some men are bigoted in politics, who are infidels in religion.—Ridiculous credulity!
—Junius
It behooves the minor critic, who hunts for blemishes, to be a little distrustful of his own sagacity.
—Junius
Topics: Critics, Criticism
Let it be impressed upon your minds, let it be instilled into your children, that the liberty of the press is the palladium of all the civil, political, and religious rights.
—Junius
Topics: Media
To attack vices in the abstract, without touching persons, may be safe fighting, but it is fighting with shadows.
—Junius
Topics: Vice
How much easier is it to be generous than just.
—Junius
Topics: Generosity
There is a holy, mistaken zeal in politics, as well as in religion. By persuading others, we convince ourselves.
—Junius
Topics: Persuasion
In a great business there is nothing so fatal as cunning management.
—Junius
Topics: Cunning
The violation of party faith, is, of itself, too common to excite surprise or indignation.—Political friendships are so well understood that we can hardly pity the simplicity they deceive.
—Junius
Topics: Politics
As to lawyers, their profession is supported by the indiscriminate defense of right and wrong.
—Junius
Topics: Lawyers
Where the guilt is doubtful, a presumption of innocence should in general be admitted.
—Junius
Topics: Guilt
The lives of the best of us are spent in choosing between evils.
—Junius
Topics: Decisions, Evils
The integrity of men is to be measured by their conduct, not by their professions.
—Junius
Topics: Integrity
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
Topics: Ancestors, Ancestry
Notable talents are not necessarily connected with discretion.
—Junius
Topics: Judgment, Judging
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
It is a maxim received in life that, in general, we can determine more wisely for others than for ourselves. The reason of it is so clear in argument that it hardly wants the confirming of experience.
—Junius
Topics: Judgment, Wisdom
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