"William Pitt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... plain enough that I was to be endowed: to what extent and upon what conditions I was now left for an hour to meditate in the wide and solitary thoroughfares of the new town, taking counsel with street-corner statues of George IV. and William Pitt, improving my mind with the pictures in the window of a music-shop, and renewing my acquaintance with Edinburgh east wind. By the end of the hour I made my way to Mr. Gregg's office, where I was placed, with a few appropriate words, in possession of a cheque for two thousand pounds and a small ...
— The Wrecker • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... important business, my misguided parent repaired to the metropolis, and on his arrival laid the plan before the late Earl of Hilsborough, Sir Hugh Palliser, the late Earl of Bristol, Lord Chatham (father to the present Mr. William Pitt), the chancellor Lord Northington, who was my godfather, and several other equally distinguished personages; who all not only approved the plan, but commended the laudable and public spirit which induced my father to suggest it. The prospect appeared full of promise, and ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... incontrovertibly bids defiance to every regulation which ingenuity can devise, or power effect, but a TOTAL EXTINCTION. Why ought slavery to be abolished? Because it is incurable injustice. Why is injustice to remain for a single hour?" WILLIAM PITT. ...
— Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America • Moses Grandy
... [Lines written by Traveller at Czarco-zelo] were written by William PITT—as I learnt from his nephew on the 28th of May 1808, at a dinner held ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 79, May 3, 1851 • Various
... sovereign, the love of that sovereign for his continental dominion, his native country, made itself strongly felt in the councils of a weak and time-serving ministry. It was the disregard of Hanover by the first William Pitt, consequent upon his strong English feeling, that incensed the king and led him so long to resist the demands of the nation that he should be put at the head of affairs. These different causes—dissension at home, interest ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... is a Richelieu, a William Pitt, or a Cavour; but the work of such men is not what the German Empire just now requires. The man needed at present is the one who can keep things GOING, who can minimize differences, resist extremists, turn aside marplots, soothe doctrinaires, and thus give the good germs ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... words find credit in these latter days, If neatly grafted on a Gallic phrase: What Chaucer, Spenser, did, we scarce refuse To Dryden's or to Pope's maturer muse. If you can add a little, say why not, As well as William Pitt and Walter Scott, Since they, by force of rhyme, and force of lungs, Enrich'd our island's ill-united tongues? 'Tis then, and shall be, lawful to present Reforms ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... There was little sign to the common eye that under a dull and languid surface, forces were at work preparing a new life, material, moral, and intellectual. As yet, Whitefield and Wesley had not wakened the drowsy conscience of the nation, nor the voice of William Pitt roused it like ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... by teaching that there are no natural rights, and that therefore there is no moral right or wrong in political action, you have poisoned the wells and rotted the crops in the ground. The three greatest living statesmen of England knew this also—Edmund Burke knew it, and Charles James Fox, and William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. But they did not speak for the King or parliament, or the English nation. Lord Gower spoke for them when he said in Parliament: "Let the Americans talk about their natural and divine rights! their rights as men and citizens! their rights ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... what was then considered wit—but which we moderns are not worthy to appreciate. Lord Hertford and Henry Conway, Walpole's cousins, were also his schoolfellows; and for them he evinced throughout his long life a warm regard. William Pitt, Lord Chatham—chiefly remembered at Eton for having been flogged for being out of bounds—was a contemporary, though not an intimate, of Horace Walpole's ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... England. Two hundred years ago in our mother land, the word platform meant no more than a resting place for boxes and barrels. A religious service was simply a routine of ritual, while such a thing as a public man addressing the masses was unknown. Sir William Pitt, one of England's greatest statesman and orators, in all his public life uttered only two sentences to the public outside of Parliament. If William Jennings Bryan had lived in Pitt's day, he would have been ignored by the Prime Minister ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... William Pitt died on the 23rd January, 1806. Charles James Fox became again a Secretary of State, and had set on foot negotiations for a peace with France before his own death, eight months later, at ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... public address, it is not only an asset but almost a necessity. It is better to try with it, and to fall flat occasionally, thereby sharpening one's own wit through better understanding of what goes and what does not, than to attempt to go along humorlessly. Said William Pitt: "Don't tell me of a man's being able to talk sense. Everyone can talk sense. Can he talk a little nonsense?" Even more to the point is the remark of Thomas Hardy that men thin away to insignificance quite ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... heard a deal of that nobleman's peculations of the public funds. But in this he was no worse than the bulk of his colleagues. His desertion of William Pitt I ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... led off by electing Edward Kent Governor, and five of her eight Congressmen, including William Pitt Fessenden and Elisha H. Allen, who afterward, when Minister from the Sandwich Islands to the United States, fell dead at a New Year's reception at the White House. Delaware, Maryland, and Georgia soon afterward followed suit, electing Whig Congressmen and ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore
... greatest Prime Ministers, William Pitt, shortly after the adoption of the Constitution, prophetically said that it would be the admiration of the future ages and the pattern for future constitution building. Time has verified his prediction, for constitution making has been, since the American ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... suddenly from her post, and, wresting the tickets from her duenna, exclaimed, "'I know that I can save the country, and I know no other man can!' as William Pitt said to the Duke of Devonshire. I have had enough of this argument. For six months of last year we discussed travelling third class and continued to travel first. Get into that clean hard-seated, ill-upholstered third-class carriage immediately, both of you; save room enough for a mother with two ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... ability, yet, by using his faculties in a natural way, he was able to supply material for two of the finest literary fragments of modern times. I take it that the most stirring and profoundly wise piece of modern history is Carlyle's brief account of William Pitt, given in the "Life of Frederick the Great." Once we have read it we feel as though the great commoner had stood before us for a while under a searching light; his figure is imprinted on the very nerves, and no man who has read carefully can ever shake off an impression that seems burnt into ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... Walpole were weak and inefficient; but in 1757 William Pitt, the Elder (1708-1778), although merely secretary of state, obtained the ascendancy in the government. Walpole had tried in vain to bribe Pitt, who was in politics the counterpart of Wesley in religious life. Pitt appealed ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... as before, and Mahan: Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire. Loir: Etudes d'histoire maritime. Clowes: The Royal Navy. Stanhope: Life of Hon. William Pitt.] ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... soon learned to read. The first and most important book owned by him was called the "Columbian Orator." He bought it with money secretly earned by blacking boots on the street. It contained selected passages from such great orators as Lord Chatham, William Pitt Fox, and Sheridan. These speeches were steeped in the sentiments of liberty, and were full of references to the "rights of man." They gave to young Douglass a larger idea of liberty than was included in his mere dream of freedom for himself, and in addition they increased his vocabulary ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... did not exist. When his father, Doctor Perkins, died, this, his only son, was placed under the care of John Perkins, Esquire, of the house of Perkins, Scully, and Perkins, those celebrated attorneys in the trading town of Oldborough, which the second partner, William Pitt Scully, Esquire, represented in Parliament and ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the many stories told of Thurlow and ebriosity, one may be here taken and brought under the reader's notice—not because it has wit or humor to recommend it, but because it presents the Chancellor in company with another port-loving lawyer, William Pitt, from whose fame, by-the-by, Lord Stanhope has recently removed the old disfiguring imputations of sottishness. "Returning," says Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, a poor authority, but piquant gossip-monger, "by ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... imbecility of the Tories will lead them to spoil their case. That is where we are; on the one side, timid imbecility "waiting for instructions from the constituencies"; furious imbecility on the other, looking out for party advantage. Oh! for a few months of William Pitt. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... these were—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Montaigne, Montesquieu, Montfaucon, Dr. Moore, Sir John Moore, Necker, Nelson, Netherlands, Newfoundland, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Northumberland, Mungo Park, Lord Chatham, William Pitt. These articles, on the whole judiciously omitted from the author's collected works, are characterised by marks of great industry, commonplace, and general fairness, with a style singularly formal, like that of the less im pressive pages of Johnson. The following, among numerous ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... English,— Braddock's attempt against Fort Du Quesne, upon the march to which he suffered his memorable defeat in the wilderness, being but one of several ill-starred English undertakings. But in the year 1757, the elder William Pitt (afterwards Earl of Chatham), known as "the Great Commoner," came to the head of affairs in England. Straightway every department of the government was infused with new vigor. His own indomitable will and persistent energy ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... Historical: Edmund Burke was a British statesman of Irish birth, who lived at the time of the American Revolution. While William Pitt opposed, in the House of Lords, the policy of the British government, Edmund Burke delivered, in the House of Commons, his famous speech on the Conciliation of the Colonies, March 22, 1775. This extract is taken from the closing paragraphs ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... that she had supplied him with information which enabled him to anticipate a mutiny of the convicts on the passage out. On the return of the Glatton to England, the St. James Chronicle informs its readers that at a dinner at Walmer Castle Colnett dined with William Pitt. Perhaps over their wine the two discussed Governor King, and hence perhaps Hobart's ...
— The Naval Pioneers of Australia • Louis Becke and Walter Jeffery
... great outburst of feeling, when the indignant mob outside hammered on the doors of the church while the funeral service proceeded inside. The huge monument, which fills up the last arch on the western side, was erected by Parliament, at the cost of 6000 pounds, as a tribute to the fame of William Pitt, Earl of Chatham. Bacon was guilty of this enormity, while Westmacott perpetrated the equally tasteless allegorical group over the west door, which commemorates the younger Pitt. Father and son lie together in this aisle. Not far from theirs are the graves of two other statesmen, ...
— Westminster Abbey • Mrs. A. Murray Smith
... aim by which he was changing the destinies of Europe. He saw that what was called the "balance of power" was only an idle dream; that, unless some master-mind could be found which was a match for events, the millions would rule in anarchy. His iron will grasped the situation; and like William Pitt, he did not loiter around balancing the probabilities of failure or success, or dally with his purpose. There was no turning to the right nor to the left; no dreaming away time, nor building air-castles; but one look and purpose, forward, upward and onward, straight to his goal. He always hit ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... occurred to him that he had no definite place of rest for the day, and that he should be absolutely worn out before his interview if he attempted to walk about from 10 A.M. to 10 P.M., so he sat himself down on a stone step, and gazed up at the figure of William Pitt, who looks as though he had just entered the church for the first time in his life and was anything but ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... in cabinet meetings usually voted with Shelburne. The ministry had not lasted five weeks when Fox began to predict its downfall. On the great question of parliamentary reform, which was brought up in May by the young William Pitt, the government was hopelessly divided. Shelburne's party was in favour of reform, and this time Fox was found upon the same side, as well as the Duke of Richmond, who went so far as to advocate universal suffrage. On the other hand, the Whig aristocracy, led by Rockingham, were as bitterly ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... child of thoughtless imprudence as the most humble subject of the crown. His unfortunate marriage with a Princess of Brunswick originated in his debts; as he married that unhappy lady for one million sterling, William Pitt being the contractor! The Princess of Wales married nothing but an association with the Crown of England. If the Prince ever seriously loved any woman, it was Mrs. Fitzherbert, with whom he ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... former volume, entitled "William Pitt and National Revival," I sought to trace the career of Pitt the Younger up to the year 1791. Until then he was occupied almost entirely with attempts to repair the evils arising out of the old order of things. ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... John Langhorne, a northern divine of no small popularity in his day as a poet. Among other illustrious living men, were Horace Walpole, Henry Mackenzie, Blair, Hume, Adam Smith, Dr Robertson, Garrick, Reynolds; and last, not least, William Pitt, who, in 1766, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... William Pitt, by Sir Francis Chantrey, set up in the year 1831, is of bronze, and cost 7000l. I was present at its erection with Sir Francis Chantrey and my father, who was Chantrey's assistant. The statue was ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 27. Saturday, May 4, 1850 • Various
... and moved along the main street between the rows of ancient buildings, past the old stone church with its inevitable and always welcome gray, ivy-draped tower, to the quaint old square with the statue of William Pitt in its center. My companion, all at once, seemed to ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... House-rent is dearer in proportion with other articles of living, and the taxes are daily augmenting. The horse-tax is more than double that of England; and the king of the Netherlands can boast that he is the only sovereign in Europe who has a tax on female labour. William Pitt attempted a similar measure, but was mobbed by the housemaids, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 397, Saturday, November 7, 1829. • Various
... Mencius (372-289 B.C.), of the ballads and ceremonial rites of three thousand years ago, and of an aptitude for essay-writing and the composition of verse. The whole curriculum may be fitly compared with such an education as was given to William Pitt and others among our own great statesmen, in which an ability to read the Greek and Roman classics, coupled with an intimate knowledge of the Peloponnesian War, carried the student about as far as it was considered necessary for him to go. The Chinese course, too, has certainly ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... William Pitt was partly to blame for the Revolutionary War. He claimed that the Colonists ought not to manufacture so much as a horseshoe nail except ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... politicians! Since writing the former part of this letter, I have been at the coffee-house, and bring you back verbatim, a very curious article of the Gazette. "St. James's, Oct. 9. The Right Hon. William Pitt having resigned the Seals into the King's hands, his Majesty was this day pleased to appoint the Earl of Egremont to be one of his principal Secretaries of State, and in consideration of the great and important services of the said Mr. Pitt, his Majesty ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.01 • Various
... college wrote to his great-aunt (the wife of the Under Secretary of State) "... he has something in him of what men of Old called prophecy and we term genius ...", old Dr. Biddlecup the Dean asked the boy to dinner, and afterwards assured his father that little Joseph was the image of William Pitt, whom he falsely pretended to have seen in childhood, and to whom the Duggletons were related through Mrs. Duggleton's grandmother, whose sister had married the first cousin of the ...
— On Nothing & Kindred Subjects • Hilaire Belloc
... allusion to the story of Palinurus in Scott's "Marmion," Introduction to Canto I., where the poet, speaking of the recent death of William Pitt, says: ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... entered the Senate the case came up of the title of William Pitt Kellogg to a seat in the Senate ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... of the unfair treatment of Governor Dinwiddie, and the indifference of England. His force was too small and untrained to make an attempt against the French; but he remained patient and cheerful and for almost two years, he stood by the people who depended upon him. Then William Pitt became prime minister of England (1757) and at once took an interest in the defense of ...
— George Washington • Calista McCabe Courtenay |
