James Fitzjames Stephen

Used with due abstinence, hope acts as a healthful tonic; intemperately indulged, as an enervating opiate. The visions of future triumph, which…

— James Fitzjames Stephen

The things which cannot be adequately represented by words are more important than those which can.

— James Fitzjames Stephen

Wisdom may be the ultimate arbiter, but is seldom the immediate agent in human affairs.

— James Fitzjames Stephen

Each must act as he thinks best; and if he is wrong, so much the worse for him. We stand on a…

— James Fitzjames Stephen

Power and courtly influence form an intoxicating draught even when raised to the lips of an ascetic and a saint.

— James Fitzjames Stephen

Thus hope, aided by imagination, makes one man a hero, another a somnambulist, and a third a lunatic; while it renders them…

— James Fitzjames Stephen

A well-judging man will open his trunk-line of study in such a direction that, while habitually adhering to it, he may enjoy…

— James Fitzjames Stephen

A liberal conservative is a man who thinks things ought to progress but would rather they remained as they are.

— James Fitzjames Stephen

To me this question whether liberty is a good or a bad thing appears as irrational as the question whether fire is…

— James Fitzjames Stephen

To try to regulate the internal affairs of a family, the relations of love or friendship, or many other things of the…

— James Fitzjames Stephen

“In all important transactions of life we have to take a leap in the dark.... If we decide to leave the riddles…

— James Fitzjames Stephen

To try to make men equal by altering social arrangements is like trying to make the cards of equal value by shuffling…

— James Fitzjames Stephen

Not only are the varieties of morality innumerable, but some of them are conflicting with each other.

— James Fitzjames Stephen

Persuasion, indeed, is a kind of force. It consists in showing a person the consequences of his actions. It is, in a…

— James Fitzjames Stephen

The result of cutting [political power] up into little bits is simply that the man who can sweep the greatest number into…

— James Fitzjames Stephen

Parliamentary government is simply a mild and disguised form of compulsion. We agree to try strength by counting heads instead of breaking…

— James Fitzjames Stephen

Originally consists in thinking for yourself, and not in thinking unlike other people.

— James Fitzjames Stephen

The only shape in which equality is really connected with justice is this - justice presupposes general rules. If these general rules…

— James Fitzjames Stephen