Edmund Burke: “A statesman, never losing sight of principles, is to be guided by circumstances; and judging contrary to the exigencies…”

Their trust for the future preservation of the Constitution was not in future revolutions.

But the king of Great Britain obeys no other person; all other persons are individually, and collectively too, under him, and owe to him a legal obedience.

Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity.

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.