Political Quotes

Edmund Burke: The whole service is irregular: nobody is free from small offences; and, as I have said, the great offender can always…

On the record
The whole service is irregular: nobody is free from small offences; and, as I have said, the great offender can always crush the small one.
Said by
Edmund Burke

Editor's note · Context

Burke asserts that the entire service is flawed, with everyone guilty of minor offenses, making it easy for the powerful to dominate.

Share

More from Edmund Burke

Jan 1, 1790

When such an unwarrantable maxim is once established, that no throne is lawful but the elective, no one act of the princes who preceded this era of fictitious election can be valid.

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1790

By adhering in this manner and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided, not by the superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy.

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1790

This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.

gutenberg.org
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…

gutenberg.org

Other voices in this conversation