They subvert all the authority which they hold, as well as all that which they have destroyed.
Edmund Burke: “They subvert all the authority which they hold, as well as all that which they have destroyed.”
Editor's note · Context
Burke asserts that those who undermine authority also destroy the foundations of society.
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Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own.
If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.
But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service.





