Edmund Burke: “This alone (if there were nothing else) is an irreparable calamity to you and to mankind.”

They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.

Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.

I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.

They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.