Edmund Burke: “No fewer than ten sovereign princes had, some the whole, all a very considerable part of their dominions under the yoke…”

The ceremony of cashiering kings, of which these gentlemen talk so much at their ease, can rarely, if ever, be performed without force.

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.

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.

This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction.