Edmund Burke: “All their new institutions (and with them everything is new) strike at the root of our social nature.”

Not being illuminated with the light of which the gentlemen of France tell us they have got so abundant a share, they acted under a strong impression of the ignorance and fallibility of mankind.

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

I think our happy situation owing to our Constitution,--but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly,--owing in a great measure to what we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have…

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