Political Quotes

Edmund Burke: The whole has emanated from the simplicity of our national character, and from a sort of native plainness and directness…

On the record
The whole has emanated from the simplicity of our national character, and from a sort of native plainness and directness of understanding, which for a long time characterized those men who have successively obtained authority among us.
Said by
Edmund Burke

Editor's note · Context

Burke reflects on the simplicity and directness of the national character that has shaped leadership.

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More from Edmund Burke

Jan 1, 1790

Unquestionably there was at the Revolution, in the person of King William, a small and a temporary deviation from the strict order of a regular hereditary succession; but it is against all genuine principles of jurisprudence to draw a…

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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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Jan 1, 1790

No experience has taught us that in any other course or method than that of an hereditary crown our liberties can be regularly perpetuated and preserved sacred as our hereditary right.

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Jan 1, 1790

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.

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