Edmund Burke Quotes

The framers hated the tyranny of King George, but they were also afraid of the mob. That's why they put so many checks and balances into our system, to guard against the excesses of a government that might be inflamed by public passion or perverted by a dictator's whim.

The 20th century shows that the form of government that we take for granted, a constitutional democratic republic with checks and balances and a rule of law - that form of government is usually temporary.

Let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarcy, that in America the law is King. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.

Just as a royal rule, if not a mere name, must exist by virtue of some great personal superiority in the king, so tyranny, which is the worst of governments, is necessarily the farthest removed from a well-constituted form; oligarchy is little better, for it is a long way from aristocracy, and democracy is the most tolerable of the three.

The best Governments of the World have bin composed of Monarchy, Aristocracy, and Democracy.

The Founding Fathers gladly sacrificed government that could provide speedy, effective, cohesive, and internally consistent policies. They opted for one that had a maximum number of veto points and checks and balances and protections against tyranny by particular officials or tyranny by selfish majorities.

I do not conceive God did ever ordain [democracy] as a fit government for either church or commonwealth …. As for monarchy and aristocracy, they are both clearly approved and directed in the Scriptures.

I am sensible that there are defects in our federal government, yet they are so much lighter than those of monarchies, that I view them with much indulgence. I rely, too, on the good sense of the people for remedy, whereas the evils of monarchical government are beyond remedy. If any of our countrymen wish for a King, give them Aesop's fable of the frogs who asked a King; if this does not cure them, send them to Europe. They will go back good republicans.

Institutions purely democratic must, sooner or later, destroy liberty, or civilization, or both.

Democracy sounded well and good, but its results are seen not to agree at all with its title. Monarchy, on the contrary, has an unpleasant sound, but is a more practical form of government to live under. For it is easier to find a single excellent man, than to find many of them.

As for us BRITONS, thank Heaven, we have a better Sense of Government deliver’d to us from our Ancestors. We have the Notion of A PUBLIC and A CONSTITUTION; how a Legislative, and how an Executive is model’d.

The President of the Republic in our constitution will be like the sun which, firmly in the centre, gives life to the universe. The supreme authority must be permanent because in non-hereditary systems one needs, more than in others, a fixed point around which circle the magistrates and citizens, men and things. For a people to be free it must have a strong government which possesses sufficient means to free them from popular anarchy and the abuse of the powerful

In republics the executive must be strongest because everything conspires against it, while in monarchies the legislature must be strongest, because everything conspires in favour of the monarch

Our democratic belief that anyone can be a political leader paradoxically feeds into the anti-democratic belief that we should look to one person to quickly and easily save us. No one, alone, can fix it, and in our system of government, this authoritarian approach is a prescription for catastrophe.

The rule of law is a republic. The rule of one person is a monarchy.

Of the various forms of government which have prevailed in the world, an hereditary monarchy seems to present the fairest scope for ridicule.

We are laying the foundations of a government, which we hope may outlast the Pyramids.

A constitution, in the American sense of the word, is a written instrument by which the fundamental powers of the government are established, limited, and defined, and by which these powers are distributed among several departments, for their more safe and useful exercise, for the benefit of the body politic.

In our system of democracy, our government works on a system of checks and balances. Instead of stripping power from the courts, I believe we should follow the process prescribed in our Constitution - consideration of a Constitutional amendment.

Our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here, the people rule.

Our Founding Fathers crafted a constitutional Republic for the first time in the history of the world because they were shaping a form of government that would not have the failures of a democracy in it, but had the representation of democracy in it.

It is foolishly thought by some that democratical constitutions will not, cannot, last; that the States will quarrel with each other; that a king, or at least a nobility, are indispensable for the prosperity of a nation.

In my opinion, the form of Government may be different in different countries, according to their circumstances, their wishes, their wants. England loves her Queen, and has full motive to do so.

Here, also, has been evolved the form of government consistent with the largest possible civil liberty.

A good constitution is infinitely better than the best despot.