You see here not the little paltry things which might deserve in their causes the animadversion of a rough satirist like Doctor Swift, whom I have just quoted, but you see things ten thousand times more serious, things that deserve the thunderbolt of vindictive justice upon the head of the prisoner at your bar.
Edmund Burke: “You see here not the little paltry things which might deserve in their causes the animadversion of a rough satirist like…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke contrasts serious injustices with trivial criticisms, calling for severe consequences for the accused.
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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.
They have little regard to the obvious consequences of their doctrine, though they may see that it leaves positive authority in very few of the positive institutions of this country.
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.
By adhering in this manner and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided, not by the superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy.





