On the record
When any Dissenters, or any body of people, come here with a petition, it is not the number of people, but the reasonableness of the request, that should weigh with the House.
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgEdmund Burke: “When any Dissenters, or any body of people, come here with a petition, it is not the number of people, but the…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke argues that the merit of a petition should be judged by its reasonableness rather than the number of supporters.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
Jan 1, 1790
If all the absurd theories of lawyers and divines were to vitiate the objects in which they are conversant, we should have no law and no religion left in the world.
Jan 1, 1790
But supposing they had ranked as they ought to do, and as with us they do actually, the sides of sick-beds are not the academies for forming statesmen and legislators.
Jan 1, 1790
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.
Jan 1, 1790
The ceremony of cashiering kings, of which these gentlemen talk so much at their ease, can rarely, if ever, be performed without force.
Other voices in this conversation
