Edmund Burke: “The usurpation no longer seeks plausibility: it trusts to power.”

The improvements of the National Assembly are superficial, their errors fundamental.

They cannot raise supplies; but they can raise mobs.

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.

To keep a balance between the power of acquisition on the part of the subject and the demands he is to answer on the part of the state is the fundamental part of the skill of a true politician.