On the record
The authority that is to restrain, to control, to punish them is previously engaged; he has his retaining fee for the support of their crimes.
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgThe authority that is to restrain, to control, to punish them is previously engaged; he has his retaining fee for the support of their crimes.
Burke highlights the complicity of authority figures in perpetuating corruption and oppression.
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More from Edmund Burke
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.
The people of England will not ape the fashions they have never tried, nor go back to those which they have found mischievous on trial.
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.