Political Quotes

Edmund Burke: Our desire of acquiring sovereignty in India undoubtedly originated first in ideas of safety and necessity; its next…

On the record
Our desire of acquiring sovereignty in India undoubtedly originated first in ideas of safety and necessity; its next step was a step of ambition.
Said by
Edmund Burke

Editor's note · Context

Burke traces the origins of British sovereignty in India from safety to ambition, illustrating the evolution of imperial motives.

Share

More from Edmund Burke

Jan 1, 1790

The people of England will not ape the fashions they have never tried, nor go back to those which they have found mischievous on trial.

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1790

If all the absurd theories of lawyers and divines were to vitiate the objects in which they are conversant, we should have no law and no religion left in the world.

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1790

Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity.

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1790

Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy.

gutenberg.org

Other voices in this conversation