Reflections on the Revolution in France Quotes.

1. "It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."
- Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

2. "Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government."
- Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

3. "Kings will be tyrants by policy when subjects are rebels from principle."
- Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

4. "You will smile here at the consistency of those democratists who, when they are not on their guard, treat the humbler part of the community with the greatest contempt, whilst, at the same time they pretend to make them the depositories of all power."
- Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

5. "It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in,—glittering like the morning-star, full of life, and splendor, and joy. Oh! what a revolution! and what a heart must I have, to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream that, when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honour and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.—But the age of chivalry is gone.—That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom. The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone! It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness."
- Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

6. "Wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to names; to the causes of evil which are permanent, not to occasional organs by which they act, and the transitory modes in which they appear."
- Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

7. "A state without the means of some change, is without the means of its own conservation."
- Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

8. "Difficulty is a severe instructor, set over us by the supreme ordinance of a parental guardian and legislator, who knows us better than we know ourselves, as he loves us better too. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper."
- Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

9. "To give freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to guide; it only requires to let go the rein. But to form a free government; that is, to temper together these opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one work, requires much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and combining mind."
- Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

10. "Those who attempt to level, never equalize."
- Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France