Edmund Burke

He who profits of a superior understanding raises his powers to a level with the height of the superior understanding he unites with.

That he who calls in the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own.

But, in his opinion, the very worst part of the example set is in the late assumption of citizenship by the army, and the whole of the arrangement, or rather disarrangement, of their military.

On the side of religion, the danger of their example is no longer from intolerance, but from atheism: a foul, unnatural vice, foe to all the dignity and consolation of mankind; which seems in France, for a long time, to have been embodied…

In the last age we were in danger of being entangled by the example of France in the net of a relentless despotism.

As to the former he had spoken; as to the latter (her example) he should say a few words: for by this example our friendship and our intercourse with that nation had once been, and might again become, more dangerous to us than their worst…

France, by the mere circumstance of its vicinity, had been, and in a degree always must be, an object of our vigilance, either with regard to her actual power or to her influence and example.

Were we absolute conquerors, and France to lie prostrate at our feet, we should be ashamed to send a commission to settle their affairs which could impose so hard a law upon the French, and so destructive of all their consequence as a…

They had done their business for us as rivals in a way in which twenty Ramillies or Blenheims could never have done it.

In that very short space of time they had completely pulled down to the ground their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their revenue, their army, their navy, their commerce, their arts, and their manufactures.

The French had shown themselves the ablest architects of ruin that had hitherto existed in the world.

He was astonished at it; he was alarmed at it; he trembled at the uncertainty of all human greatness.

But if, while France continued in this swoon, we should go on increasing our expenses, we should certainly make ourselves less a match for her when it became our concern to arm.

That it was to her strength, not to her form of government, which we were to attend; because republics, as well as monarchies, were susceptible of ambition, jealousy, and anger, the usual causes of war.

He did not mean to deny that it was our duty to keep our eye on that nation, and to regulate our preparation by the symptoms of her recovery.

That he did not find, on a review of all Europe, that, politically, we stood in the smallest degree of danger from any one state or kingdom it contained, nor that any other foreign powers than our own allies were likely to obtain a…

That confidence, of all public virtues, was the most dangerous, and jealousy in an House of Commons, of all public vices, the most tolerable,--- especially where the number and the charge of standing armies in time of peace was the…

Burke said in substance, That confidence might become a vice, and jealousy a virtue, according to circumstances.

It shows, too, the absolute necessity of a severe and exemplary punishment on certain of his English evil counsellors and creditors, by whom such practices are carried on.

No revenues are collected from the countries, but from the effects of the poor, wretched inhabitants.

Conscious of the weak ground on which he stands, he is obliged to have recourse to these artifices to mislead the judgment, and support for a time his unjustifiable measures by deceit and imposition.

The negotiation with Tippoo, which he has set on foot through the mediation of Monsieur Bussy, has employed all his thoughts, and to the attainment of that object he will sacrifice the dearest interests of the Company to gratify his…

Has he not solemnly declared that the assignment was only made for the support of war? and if neither your instructions nor the orders of his superiors at Bengal were to be considered as effectual, has not the treaty of peace virtually…

You must doubtless be astonished, no less at the assurance than at the absurdity of such a wicked suggestion.

Every shadow of authority in my person is taken from me, and respect to my name discouraged throughout the whole country.