It is better to cherish virtue and humanity, by leaving much to free will, even with some loss to the object, than to attempt to make men mere machines and instruments of a political benevolence.
Arguing against the revolutionary impulse to engineer society, Burke emphasizes the importance of individual liberty for cultivating virtue.
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Those who are servants in name, as well as in effect, do not like to be told of their situation, their duty, and their obligations.
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…
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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