Harold J. Laski: “Yet, in the long run, the real weapon which defeated George was the ideas of Edmund Burke; for he gave to the political…”

In a time of crisis, particularly, when the things we hold most dear are threatened, we shall find the desire to throw overboard the habits of tolerance, almost irresistible.

From no accusation were its statesmen more anxious to be free than from that of a belief in democratic government.

There are realms of conduct within which, to be free, I must be permitted to act as I please; to be denied self-expression there, is to be denied freedom.

But we cannot understand the eighteenth century, or its theories, unless we realize that its temper was still dominantly aristocratic.