William Pitt the Elder

“Don't talk to me about a man being able to talk sense; everyone can talk sense. Can he talk nonsense?”
~William Pitt the Elder~

(1708 – 1778)

The father of William Pitt the Younger, William Pitt the Elder was also Prime Minister of England from 1766 – 1768 . He was a commanding man and a natural orator having that gift of speech that great speakers have who are compelling and passionate, coupling their speeches with intense convictions able to sway their audience. He unfortunately suffered from gout early in his life, halting his career on and off, until his death at the age of sixty-nine.

He was an opponent of large and bloated governments like his son, (William Pitt the Younger), and understood America's war of resistance to England, stating,

“I rejoice that America has resisted. Three millions of people, so dead to all the feelings of liberty, as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have been fit instruments to make slaves of the rest.”

“If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms -- never! never! never!”


Here are a few more of our favorite quotes by him.


"The poorest man may in his cottage, bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake; the wind may blow through it; the storm may enter; the rain may enter; but the King of England may not enter; all his force dares not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement." This sounds like our Fourth Amendment – The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects . . . equaling the right to privacy, to be let alone.


“So as this only point among the rest remaineth sure and certain, namely, that nothing is certain. . .”

“Let honor be to us as strong an obligation as necessity is to others.”