Political Quotes

Edmund Burke: The first question a good statesman would ask himself, therefore, would be, How and in what circumstances do you find…

On the record
The first question a good statesman would ask himself, therefore, would be, How and in what circumstances do you find the society? and to act upon them.
Said by
Edmund Burke

Editor's note · Context

Burke advises that a good statesman must assess the current state of society.

Share

More from Edmund Burke

Jan 1, 1790

An irregular, convulsive movement may be necessary to throw off an irregular, convulsive disease.

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1790

They look on the frame of their commonwealth, such as it stands, to be of inestimable value; and they conceive the undisturbed succession of the crown to be a pledge of the stability and perpetuity of all the other members of our…

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1790

They threw a politic, well-wrought veil over every circumstance tending to weaken the rights which in the meliorated order of succession they meant to perpetuate, or which might furnish a precedent for any future departure from what they…

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1790

The House of Lords, for instance, is not morally competent to dissolve the House of Commons,--no, nor even to dissolve itself, nor to abdicate, if it would, its portion in the legislature of the kingdom.

gutenberg.org

Other voices in this conversation