Political Quotes

Edmund Burke: Before society, in a multitude of men, it is obvious that sovereignty and subjection are ideas which cannot exist.

On the record
Before society, in a multitude of men, it is obvious that sovereignty and subjection are ideas which cannot exist.
Said by
Edmund Burke

Editor's note · Context

Burke discusses the fundamental concepts of sovereignty and subjection in the context of society.

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Jan 1, 1790

So far is it from being true that we acquired a right by the Revolution to elect our kings, that, if we had possessed it before, the English nation did at that time most solemnly renounce and abdicate it, for themselves, and for all their…

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They look on the frame of their commonwealth, such as it stands, to be of inestimable value; and they conceive the undisturbed succession of the crown to be a pledge of the stability and perpetuity of all the other members of our…

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We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended.

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

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