"The future use and the whole effect, if not the very existence, of the process of an impeachment of high crimes and misdemeanors before the peers of this kingdom upon the charge of the Commons will very much be decided by your judgment in this cause... For we must not deceive ourselves: whatever does not stand with credit cannot stand long. And if the Constitution should be deprived, I do not mean in form, but virtually, of this resource, it is virtually deprived of everything else that is valuable in it. For this process is the cement which binds the whole together; this is the individuating principle that makes England what England is."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Members of the Parliament of Great BritainPhilosophers from IrelandPoliticians from IrelandPeople from DublinAnglicans
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Speech in opening the impeachment of Warren Hastings (15 February 1788), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Volume the Ninth (1899), p. 332
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Edmund Burke
1729 – 1797
irischer Staatsmann und Philosoph
403 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Edmund Burke →
Related Quotes
"I have been told by an eminent bookseller, that in no branch of his business, after tracts of popular devotion, were …"
"Turn over a new leaf."
"With respect to us, Poland might be, in fact, considered as a country in the moon."
"You talk of Paine with more respect than he deserves: He is utterly incapable of comprehending his subject. He has no…"
"To the Deity must be left the task of infinite perfection, while to us poor, weak, incapable mortals, there was no ru…"
"The present state of France was ten times worse than a tyranny. The new constitution was said to be an experiment but…"
"He laid it down as a maxim, that monarchy was the basis of all good government and the nearer to monarchy any governm…"
"...what I look to with seriousness is the Phalanx of Party which exists in the body of the dissenters, who are, at th…"
"France had endeavoured under the specious pretext of an enlarged benevolence, to sow the seeds of enmity among nation…"
"The Leaders have ever since gone...to propagate the principles of French Levelling and confusion, by which no house i…"