Algernon Sidney

If vice and corruption prevail, liberty cannot subsist; but if virtue have the advantage, arbitrary power cannot be established.

— Algernon Sidney

Machiavel, discoursing on these matters, finds virtue to be so essentially necessary to the establishment and preservation of liberty, that he thinks…

— Algernon Sidney

Men lived like fishes; the great ones devoured the small.

— Algernon Sidney

[A]ll popular and well-mixed governments [republics] . . . are ever established by wise and good men, and can never be upheld…

— Algernon Sidney

Everyone sees they cannot well live asunder, nor many together, without some rule to which all must submit.

— Algernon Sidney

For violence or fraud can create no right.

— Algernon Sidney

It is not necessary to light a candle to the sun

— Algernon Sidney

Many things are unknown to the wisest, and the best men can never wholly divest themselves of passions and affections... nothing can…

— Algernon Sidney

If his Majesty is resolved to have my head, he may make a whistle of my arse if he pleases.

— Algernon Sidney

Violence and fraud can create no right.

— Algernon Sidney

That which is not just, is not Law; and that which is not Law, ought not to be obeyed.

— Algernon Sidney

[L]iberty cannot be preserved, if the manners of the people are corrupted . . .

— Algernon Sidney

Liberty cannot be preserved, if the manners of the people are corrupted.

— Algernon Sidney

Liars need to have good memories.

— Algernon Sidney

[I]f vice and corruption prevail, liberty cannot subsist; but if virtue have the advantage, arbitrary power cannot be established.

— Algernon Sidney

We cannot distinguish truth from falsehood, right from wrong, or know what obedience we owe to the magistrate, or what we may…

— Algernon Sidney

The only ends for which governments are constituted, and obedience rendered to them, are the obtaining of and protection; and they who…

— Algernon Sidney

Tis hard to comprehend how one man can come to be master of many, equal to himself in right, unless it be…

— Algernon Sidney

Swords were given to men, that none might be Slaves, but such as know not how to use them.

— Algernon Sidney

Laws and constitutions ought to be weighed... to constitute that which is most conducing to the establishment of justice and liberty.

— Algernon Sidney

Fruits are always of the same nature with the seeds and roots from which they come, and trees are known by the…

— Algernon Sidney

No right can come by conquest, unless there were a right of making that conquest.

— Algernon Sidney

God leaves to Man the choice of Forms in Government; and those who constitute one Form, may abrogate it.

— Algernon Sidney

I will believe in the right of one man to govern a nation despotically when I find a man born unto the…

— Algernon Sidney

Who will wear a shoe that hurts him, because the shoe-maker tells him 'tis well made?

— Algernon Sidney