Not where, under Providence, the hopes of Englishmen used to be placed, in our own courage and in our own virtues, but in the moderation and virtue of the most atrocious monsters that have ever disgraced and plagued mankind.
Burke reflects on misplaced hopes, suggesting that reliance should not be on the virtues of tyrants but on one's own courage.
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Governments must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past.
They look on the frame of their commonwealth, such as it stands, to be of inestimable value; and they conceive the undisturbed succession of the crown to be a pledge of the stability and perpetuity of all the other members of our…
The engagement and pact of society, which generally goes by the name of the Constitution, forbids such invasion and such surrender.
Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy.
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