Edmund Burke: “They were happy enough, in their opinion at least, before the change; what benefits society then had, they partook of…”

Not being illuminated with the light of which the gentlemen of France tell us they have got so abundant a share, they acted under a strong impression of the ignorance and fallibility of mankind.

They rob only to enable them to cheat; but in a very short time they defeat the ends both of the robbery and the fraud, by making out accounts for other purposes, which blow up their whole apparatus of force and of deception.

To tell the people that they are relieved by the dilapidation of their public estate is a cruel and insolent imposition.

The body of the people must not find the principles of natural subordination by art rooted out of their minds.