I flattered myself, in a moment like this, that nothing would be added to make authority top-heavy,--that the very moment of an earthquake would not be the time chosen for adding a story to our houses.
Burke reflects on the importance of not overburdening authority during times of upheaval.
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Of this consolation whoever deprives them deadens their industry, and strikes at the root of all acquisition as of all conservation.
To tell the people that they are relieved by the dilapidation of their public estate is a cruel and insolent imposition.
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
They rob only to enable them to cheat; but in a very short time they defeat the ends both of the robbery and the fraud, by making out accounts for other purposes, which blow up their whole apparatus of force and of deception.
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