Edmund Burke: “Hastings; for to give much voluntarily, when it is known that much will be taken away forcibly, is a thing absurd and…”

We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended.

This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction.

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.

The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable.