A small danger menacing an inestimable object is of more importance than the greatest perils which regard one that is indifferent to us.
Edmund Burke: “A small danger menacing an inestimable object is of more importance than the greatest perils which regard one that is…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke suggests that even a small threat to something valuable is more significant than a large threat to something of little importance.
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They have little regard to the obvious consequences of their doctrine, though they may see that it leaves positive authority in very few of the positive institutions of this country.
Their objects would be enlarged with their elevation; but their disposition, and habits, and mode of accomplishing their designs must remain the same.
Who could conceive that men who are habitually meddling, daring, subtle, active, of litigious dispositions and unquiet minds, would easily fall back into their old condition of obscure contention, and laborious, low, and unprofitable…
But the course of succession is the healthy habit of the British Constitution.





