On the record
Their spirits are broken by the arbitrary power usurped over them, and claimed by the delinquent as his law.
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgEdmund Burke: “Their spirits are broken by the arbitrary power usurped over them, and claimed by the delinquent as his law.”
Editor's note · Context
Burke notes the psychological impact of arbitrary power on the people, leading to a sense of defeat.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
Jan 1, 1790
They look upon the legal hereditary succession of their crown as among their rights, not as among their wrongs,--as a benefit, not as a grievance,--as a security for their liberty, not as a badge of servitude.
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
Ill would our ancestors at the Revolution have deserved their fame for wisdom, if they had found no security for their freedom, but in rendering their government feeble in its operations and precarious in its tenure,--if they had been able…
Jan 1, 1790
Who could conceive that men who are habitually meddling, daring, subtle, active, of litigious dispositions and unquiet minds, would easily fall back into their old condition of obscure contention, and laborious, low, and unprofitable…
Other voices in this conversation
