On the record
It is a contradiction in terms, it is blasphemy in religion, it is wickedness in politics, to say that any man can have arbitrary power.
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
Burke condemns the notion of arbitrary power as fundamentally contradictory and morally wrong.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
Jan 1, 1790
But an absurd theory on one side of a question forms no justification for alleging a false fact or promulgating mischievous maxims on the other.
Jan 1, 1790
If kings who did not owe their crown to the choice of their people had no title to make laws, what will become of the statute De tallagio non concedendo? of the Petition of Right? of the act of Habeas Corpus?
Jan 1, 1790
The House of Lords, for instance, is not morally competent to dissolve the House of Commons,--no, nor even to dissolve itself, nor to abdicate, if it would, its portion in the legislature of the kingdom.
Jan 1, 1790
We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended.
Other voices in this conversation
