Political Quotes

Edmund Burke: The minds of men, being crippled with that restraint, can do nothing for themselves: everything must be done for them.

On the record
The minds of men, being crippled with that restraint, can do nothing for themselves: everything must be done for them.
Said by
Edmund Burke

Editor's note · Context

Burke reflects on the limitations imposed on individuals by slavery, suggesting they cannot act for themselves under such conditions.

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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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All your sophisters cannot produce anything better adapted to preserve a rational and manly freedom than the course that we have pursued, who have chosen our nature rather than our speculations, our breasts rather than our inventions, for…

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

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The ceremony of cashiering kings, of which these gentlemen talk so much at their ease, can rarely, if ever, be performed without force.

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