Political Quotes

On the record
Despotism, if it means anything that is at all defensible, means a mode of government bound by no written rules, and coerced by no controlling magistracies or well-settled orders in the state.
Said by
Edmund Burke

Editor's note · Context

Burke critiques despotism as a form of government lacking accountability and rules.

Share

More from Edmund Burke

Jan 1, 1790

By adhering in this manner and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided, not by the superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy.

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1790

Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understood but too well?

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1790

So far is it from being true that we acquired a right by the Revolution to elect our kings, that, if we had possessed it before, the English nation did at that time most solemnly renounce and abdicate it, for themselves, and for all their…

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1790

The engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender.

gutenberg.org

Other voices in this conversation