They have a power given to them, like that of the Evil Principle, to subvert and destroy,--but none to construct, except such machines as may be fitted for further subversion and further destruction.
Burke describes the French revolutionaries as possessing a destructive power akin to an evil force, incapable of true creation.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
As he is not to obey us, but we are to obey the law in him, our Constitution has made no sort of provision towards rendering him, as a servant, in any degree responsible.
So far is it from being true that we acquired a right by the Revolution to elect our kings, that, if we had possessed it before, the English nation did at that time most solemnly renounce and abdicate it, for themselves, and for all their…
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy.
Other voices in this conversation
