Joseph Priestley Quotes on Politics
Joseph Priestley was an English natural philosopher, theologian, and political theorist, and one of the founding figures of English Unitarianism. This page collects quotes attributed to Joseph Priestley on the topic of politics, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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Attributed to Joseph Priestley:
“Nothing in human life is more valuable than civil and religious liberty.”
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Attributed to Joseph Priestley:
“Education has the most extensive influence on human happiness.”
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“All hereditary Government is in its nature tyranny. An heritable crown, or an heritable throne, or by what other fanciful name such things may be called, have no other significant explanation than that mankind are heritable property. To inherit a Government, is to inherit the people, as if they were flocks and herds.”
The Rights of Man (1791) -
“Section I, "Of the First Principles of Government, and the different kinds of Liberty"”
Essay on the First Principles of Government, 2nd Edition (1771) -
“If the power of government be very extensive, and the subjects of it have, consequently, little power over their own actions, that government is tyrannical, and oppressive; whether, with respect to its form, it be a monarchy, an aristocracy, or even a republic.”
Essay on the First Principles of Government, 2nd Edition (1771) | Section III, "Of Civil Liberty"