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  ...to whom the name of king is still venerable. They calculate the duration of that sentiment; and when they find it nearly expiring, they will not trouble themselves with excuses for extinguishing the name, as they have the thing. They used it as a sort of navel-string to nourish their unnatural offspring from the bowels of royalty itself. Now that the monster can purvey for its own subsistence, it will only carry the mark about it, as a token of its having torn the womb it came from. Tyrants seldom want pretexts.   Fraud is the ready minister of injustice; and whilst the currency of false pretence and sophistic reasoning was expedient to their designs, they were under no necessity of drawing upon me to furnish them with that coin. But pretexts and sophisms have had their day, and have done their work. The usurpation no longer seeks plausibility: it trusts to power.
Nothing that I can say, or that you can say, will hasten them, by a single hour, in the execution of a design which they have long...   Burke, Edmund


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Excerpt from The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 04 (of 12) · This quote is tagged Tyranny · Search on Google Books to find all references and sources for this quotation · Make a shirt with this quote on our USA or UK shop · Help your friends discover QB

A little bit about Burke, Edmund

The Right Honourable Edmund Burke (January 12, 1729 July 9, 1797) was an Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator and political philosopher, who served for many years in the British House of Commons as a member of the Whig party. He is chiefly remembered for his support of the American colonies in the struggle against King George III that led to the American Revolution, as well as for his strong opposition to the French Revolution. The latter made Burke one of the leading figures within the conservative faction of the Whig party (which he dubbed the "Old Whigs"), in opposition to the pro-revolutionary "New Whigs," led by Charles James Fox. Burke also published philosophical work on aesthetics and founded the Annual Register, a political review. In his day he was considered one of the finest parliamentary orators in Britain. · Can we improve this biography? Write us your version.

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