1688 Quotes

“The highest eulogy which can be pronounced on the revolution of 1688 is this, that it was our last revolution. Several generations have now passed away since any wise and patriotic Englishman has mediated resistance to the established government. In all honest and reflecting minds there is a conviction, daily strengthened by experience, that the means of effecting every improvement with the constitution requires may be found within the constitution itself.”
― Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England, from the Accession of James II - Volume 2

“Nature very much resembleth an Opera, where you stand, you do not see the Stage as really it is; but it is plac’d with advantage, and all the Wheels and Movements are hid, to make the Representation the more agreeable. Nor do you trouble yourself how, or by what means the Machines are moved, though certainly an Engineer in the Pit is affected with what doth not touch you; he is pleas’d with the motion, and is demonstrating to himself on what it depends, and how it comes to pass. This Engineer then is like a Philosopher, though the difficulty is greater on the Philosopher’s part, the Machines of the Theatre being nothing so curious as those of Nature, which disposeth her Wheels and Springs so out of sight, that we have been long a-guessing at the movement of the Universe.”
― John Glanville