All the reformations we have hitherto made have proceeded upon the principle of reference to antiquity; and I hope, nay, I am persuaded, that all those which possibly may be made hereafter will be carefully formed upon analogical precedent, authority, and example.
Burke asserts that all past British reforms have been grounded in historical precedent, and he expects future changes to similarly adhere to established authority and example.
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The engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender.
Who could conceive that men who are habitually meddling, daring, subtle, active, of litigious dispositions and unquiet minds, would easily fall back into their old condition of obscure contention, and laborious, low, and unprofitable…
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
The House of Lords, for instance, is not morally competent to dissolve the House of Commons,--no, nor even to dissolve itself, nor to abdicate, if it would, its portion in the legislature of the kingdom.
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