Edmund Burke: “To a person who takes a view of the whole, the strength of Paris, thus formed, will appear a system of general weakness.”

Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understood but too well?

Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly, and as it were by enchantment, snatched from the humblest rank of subordination, would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness?

Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity.

The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable.