"Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure—but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
pp. 143-144
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Reflections_on_the_Revolution_in_France
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Reflections on the Revolution in France
88 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Reflections on the Revolution in France →
Related Quotes
"I flatter myself that I love a manly, moral, regulated liberty as well as any gentleman of that society, be he who he…"
"At some time or other, to be sure, all the beginners of dynasties were chosen by those who called them to govern. The…"
"If the principles of the Revolution of 1688 are anywhere to be found, it is in the statute called the Declaration of …"
"A few years after this period, a second opportunity offered for asserting a right of election to the crown. On the pr…"
"So far is it from being true that we acquired a right by the Revolution to elect our kings that, if we had possessed …"
"A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation."
"It is common with them to dispute as if they were in a conflict with some of those exploded fanatics of slavery, who …"
"Humanity and compassion are ridiculed as the fruits of superstition and ignorance. Tenderness to individuals is consi…"
"The question of dethroning or, if these gentlemen like the phrase better, "cashiering kings" will always be, as it ha…"
"It is with them a war or a revolution, or it is nothing. ... They have some change in the church or state, or both, c…"