Edmund Burke: “Whatever turns the soul inward on itself, tends to concentre its forces, and to fit it for greater and stronger flights…”

They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.

But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service.

If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.

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