Edmund Burke: “Is it, then, the idea of Christianity itself, that it ought to have establishments, that it ought to have laws against…”

Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly, and as it were by enchantment, snatched from the humblest rank of subordination, would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness?

Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understood but too well?

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.

We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended.