Edmund Burke: “What! am I to love Nero? to fall in love with Heliogabalus? is Domitian to be the subject of my affection?”

But the course of succession is the healthy habit of the British Constitution.

They look upon the legal hereditary succession of their crown as among their rights, not as among their wrongs,--as a benefit, not as a grievance,--as a security for their liberty, not as a badge of servitude.

A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.

This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction.