Though a great house is apt to make slaves haughty, yet it is purchasing a part of the artificial importance of a great empire too dear, to pay for it all essential rights, and all the intrinsic dignity of human nature.
Burke warns against the dangers of sacrificing essential rights for superficial status within a powerful empire.
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I think our happy situation owing to our Constitution,--but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly,--owing in a great measure to what we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have…
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what they have left; and standing on the firm ground of the British Constitution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather than attempt to follow in their desperate flights, the aëronauts of…
Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
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