Political Quotes

Edmund Burke: An arbitrary system, indeed, must always be a corrupt one.

On the record
An arbitrary system, indeed, must always be a corrupt one.
Said by
Edmund Burke

Editor's note · Context

Burke claimed that any arbitrary system inherently leads to corruption.

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Jan 1, 1790

The people of England will not ape the fashions they have never tried, nor go back to those which they have found mischievous on trial.

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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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Ill would our ancestors at the Revolution have deserved their fame for wisdom, if they had found no security for their freedom, but in rendering their government feeble in its operations and precarious in its tenure,--if they had been able…

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But the king of Great Britain obeys no other person; all other persons are individually, and collectively too, under him, and owe to him a legal obedience.

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