"William Pitt" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... places where you can't get out; 'open sesame' will never lift you out of a marsh hole," said William Pitt Gaylord, our eldest brother. ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... leaders did not compensate for the weakness of their political connexions. They were unable to stand against the coldness of the king, against the hostility of the powerful and selfish faction of Bedford Whigs, and, above all, against the towering predominance of William Pitt. That Pitt did not join them is one of the many fatal miscarriages of history, as it is one of the many serious reproaches to be made against that extraordinary man's chequered and uneven course. An alliance between Pitt and the Rockingham party was the surest guarantee of a wise and liberal policy ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... tide turned. William Pitt, one of the great Englishmen of his day, was placed at the head of public affairs in Great Britain, and devoted himself with all his energy to the conduct of the war. He chose better commanders, infused enthusiasm into men and officers alike, and the result ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... and very severe critical estimate of WILLIAM PITT, the great Prime Minister of England during the stormy era of the French Revolution, was written by COLERIDGE for the London Morning Post, with which he was then connected. It appeared in the number of that paper, dated Wednesday, March 19, 1800. We copy it from COLERIDGE'S "Essays ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... a gown, wants a gown. No Keppel! No Keppel!"[147] Among the new members were Sheridan, the dramatist, and manager and part-owner of Drury lane theatre, one of Fox's friends, who became famous as an orator, and William Pitt, the second son of the great Chatham, who was returned for Appleby on Sir James Lowther's nomination in January, 1781, when he was in his twenty-second year. From early youth Pitt showed signs of a remarkable genius which was carefully cultivated by his father. Conscious of his ability, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... arm to attract her attention, and said, "See, there are lots of statues here, Betty, but I only know the names of William Pitt and Benjamin Disraeli, 'Twice Prime-Minister.' Do you remember him? Wonder if William Pitt was an ancestor of our Mrs. Pitt!" he rambled on, not seeing that his sister ...
— John and Betty's History Visit • Margaret Williamson
... a very different stamp was Senator Fessenden of Maine, who, being at the head of the senatorial part of the joint Committee on Reconstruction, presided over that important body. William Pitt Fessenden was a man who might easily have been overlooked in a crowd. There was nothing in his slight figure, his thin face framed in spare gray hair and side whiskers, and his quiet demeanor, to attract particular notice. Neither ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... early history of the platform in 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 ...
— Wit, Humor, Reason, Rhetoric, Prose, Poetry and Story Woven into Eight Popular Lectures • George W. Bain
... a stupor seemed to oppress the whole of Europe. Prussia, humiliated and indignant, had, however, just ratified the treaty of Schoenbrunn; Austria was panting and conquered; England had lost her great minister: William Pitt died 23rd January, 1806, struck to the heart in his patriotic passion, by the new victory of the conqueror whom he dreaded for the liberty of the world. "Roll up this map of Europe," said he when the news was brought to him as he lay dying in his little house ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... References 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
... the Abbey, but when his successor's tragic end came in 1822, the populace avenged themselves of the wrongs for which they believed he was responsible by throwing stones at the coffin as it was being solemnly borne to its last resting place beside William Pitt. Both men made war on Napoleon because they believed him to be the implacable disturber of peace and a danger to their country. Pitt, as we have seen, left among his MS. his opinion of the great soldier, and here is the latter's opinion of Pitt, expressed to his ministers on the eve of his ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... loud cheers—British cheers mixed with the discordant yells of those savage warriors, Fraser's Highlanders! The fate of a continent has just been decided. The genius of William Pitt has triumphed, though victory was bought at a ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... against the 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 seemed to pass into every subordinate to whom he intrusted ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... a father as mine for a boy anything under eight or ten years old. He could guess on Saturday whether I should name William Pitt on the Sunday; for, on those occasions, 'Slender Billy,' as I hope I am not irreverent in calling him, made up for the dulness of his high career with a raspberry-jam tart, for which, my father told me solemnly, the illustrious Minister had in his day a passion. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... 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 ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... up at the portal of the garden of the dowager, at Kew, when a solemn peal tolled out from the bells of London. While they were listening, a messenger came in haste to the prince and announced the sudden death of the old king. He was soon followed by William Pitt, the greatest commoner in England, the idol of the people, and, as prime minister, the actual ruler of the affairs of the empire. Pitt confirmed the sad tidings, and made preliminary arrangements for proclaiming the accession of ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... 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 the ...
— A History of the Early Part of the Reign of James the Second • Charles James Fox
... met early in 1766, in the best spirit; voted to raise on Bowling Green an equestrian statue to the King, and a statue of William Pitt—"twice the preserver of ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... all the fanaticism which I found in this Columbian Orator. I met there one of Sheridan's mighty speeches, on the subject of Catholic Emancipation, Lord Chatham's speech on the American war, and speeches by the great William Pitt and by Fox. These were all choice documents to me, and I read them, over and over again, with an interest that was ever increasing, because it was ever gaining in intelligence; for the more I read them, the better I understood them. The reading ...
— My Bondage and My Freedom • Frederick Douglass
... administration of the Duke of Newcastle over American and foreign affairs terminated, and the first William Pitt succeeded to his place. In every portion of the world mighty consequences resulted from this arrangement. The fleets and armies of Great Britain were animated with the zeal and patriotism of that ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... 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 by ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... answer." Says another, "There was argument in his very voice. It thrilled and throbbed through an audience like an organ carrying conviction captive before its wonderful melody." If it is true that William Pitt once ruled the British Nation by his voice, as good authority affirms, if it is true, that Daniel ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... 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 in writing as ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... the meaning of them. In this way he 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 ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various |
