Their resources were dearly bought, but they were sure; and the general stock of the community grew by the general effort.
Edmund Burke: “Their resources were dearly bought, but they were sure; and the general stock of the community grew by the general…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke reflects on the value of collective effort in society.
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More from Edmund Burke
Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity.
A few years ago I should be ashamed to overload a matter so capable of supporting itself by the then unnecessary support of any argument; but this seditious, unconstitutional doctrine is now publicly taught, avowed, and printed.
When such an unwarrantable maxim is once established, that no throne is lawful but the elective, no one act of the princes who preceded this era of fictitious election can be valid.
This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.





