Quote#Politics & Power
This moral levelling is a servile principle. It leads to practical…
Quote byEdmund Burke · 1729–1797
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777).
English (original)
This moral levelling is a servile principle. It leads to practical passive obedience far better, than all the doctrines, which the pliant accommodation of theology to power has ever produced.
— 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.