Political Quotes

Edmund Burke: “In their defence of one crime they are sure to meet the ghost of some former defence, which, like the spectre in Virgil…”

On the record
In their defence of one crime they are sure to meet the ghost of some former defence, which, like the spectre in Virgil, drives them back.
Said by
Edmund Burke

Editor's note · Context

Burke illustrates how individuals defending one crime often encounter the repercussions of their past actions.

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Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what they have left; and standing on the firm ground of the British Constitution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather than attempt to follow in their desperate flights, the aëronauts of…

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They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.

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They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.

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I think our happy situation owing to our Constitution,--but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly,--owing in a great measure to what we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have…

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