Sir George Savile, 8th Baronet of Thornhill FRS (18 July 1726 – 10 January 1784) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1759 to 1783.
No man is so much a fool as not to have wit enough sometimes to be a knave; nor any so cunning a knave as not to have the weakness sometimes to play the fool.
He who thinks his place below him, will certainly be below his place.
He that leaveth nothing to chance will do few things ill, but he will do very few things.
Malice is of a low stature, but it hath very long arms.
Men seldom understand any laws but those they feel.
Men in business are in as much danger from those at work under them as from those that work against them.
When the People contend for their Liberty, they seldom get anything by their Victory but new masters. Power is so apt to be insolent and Liberty to be saucy, that they are very seldom upon good Terms.
A wise man will keep his suspicions muzzled, but he will keep them awake.
There is reason to think the most celebrated philosophers would have been bunglers at business; but the reason is because they despised it.
Some men's memory is like a box where a man should mingle his jewels with his old shoes.
There is hardly any man so strict as not to vary a little from truth when he is to make an excuse.
Our virtues and vices couple with one another, and get children that resemble both their parents.
The law hath so many contradictions and varyings from itself, that the law may not improperly be called a law-breaker. It is become too changeable a thing to be defined: it is made little less a Mystery than the Gospel. The clergy and the lawyers, like the Freemasons, may be supposed to take an oath not to tell the secret.