In all their successions, not one magistrate, or one form of magistracy, has expired by a mere occasional popular tumult; everything has been the effect of the studied machinations of the one revolutionary cabal, operating within itself upon itself.
Burke describes the systematic nature of political violence in France's revolutionary government.
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I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.
If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.
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