Quote#Politics & Power
France had for some time been guilty of a continued series of hostile…
Quote byEdmund Burke · 1729–1797
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Speech in the House of Commons (12 February 1793), quoted in The Parliamentary History of England, From the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, Vol. XXX (1817), column 384.
English (original)
France had for some time been guilty of a continued series of hostile acts against this country, both external and internal: first, she directed her pursuits to universal empire, under the name of fraternity, in order to overturn the fabric of our laws and government.
— Edmund Burke
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Parties in religion and politics make sufficient discoveries concerning each other, to give a sober man a proper caution against them all.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.
I need not excuse myself to your Lordship, nor, I think, to any honest man, for the zeal I have shown in this cause; for it is an honest zeal, and in a good cause. I have defended natural religion against a confederacy of atheists and …
In vain you tell me that artificial government is good, but that I fall out only with the abuse. The thing! the thing itself is the abuse!
These few have the passions of the one; and they unite to strengthen themselves, and to secure the gratification of their lawless passions at the expense of the general good.