Whoever is complained against by his brother will be considered as persecuted; whoever is censured by his superior will be looked upon as oppressed; whoever is careless in his opinions and loose in his morals will be called a liberal man, and will be supposed to have incurred hatred because he was not a bigot.
Burke reflects on the perception of individuals within a community based on their relationships and moral standings.
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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.
This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.
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…
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.
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