Edmund Burke: “They have found that the gunpowder of ruins is far the fittest for making other ruins, and so ad infinitum.”

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.

Who but the most desperate adventurers in philosophy and finance could at all have thought of destroying the settled revenue of the state, the sole security for the public credit, in the hope of rebuilding it with the materials of…

It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.

Rome, under her emperors, united the evils of both systems; and this unnatural combination was one great cause of her ruin.