Political Quotes

Edmund Burke: But if they are formidable as foes, as friends they are dreadful indeed.

On the record
But if they are formidable as foes, as friends they are dreadful indeed.
Said by
Edmund Burke

Editor's note · Context

Burke expresses the dual threat posed by former foes who can become dangerous allies.

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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…

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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.

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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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Do they mean to attaint and disable backwards all the kings that have reigned before the Revolution, and consequently to stain the throne of England with the blot of a continual usurpation?

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