Other revolutions have been conducted by persons who, whilst they attempted or affected changes in the commonwealth, sanctified their ambition by advancing the dignity of the people whose peace they troubled.
Burke contrasts the French Revolution with earlier historical upheavals, noting that previous revolutionaries often legitimized their ambition by claiming to elevate the dignity of the populace.
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An irregular, convulsive movement may be necessary to throw off an irregular, convulsive disease.
Do they mean to attaint and disable backwards all the kings that have reigned before the Revolution, and consequently to stain the throne of England with the blot of a continual usurpation?
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.
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
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