Edmund Burke: “By it they lived, for it they were ready to die.”

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.

But to form a free government, that is, to temper together these opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one consistent work, requires much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and combining mind.

This was reserved to our time, to quench the little glimmerings of reason which might break in upon the solid darkness of this enlightened age.

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