Edmund Burke: “They are in reality and substance no other than pensions, and in no other light shall I consider them.”

The improvements of the National Assembly are superficial, their errors fundamental.

They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.

They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.

Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own.