On the record
They pull down what is above; they never raise what is below; and they depress high and low together beneath the level of what was originally the lowest.
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgThey pull down what is above; they never raise what is below; and they depress high and low together beneath the level of what was originally the lowest.
Burke describes the destructive nature of attempts to equalize societal conditions.
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We procure reverence to our civil institutions on the principle upon which Nature teaches us to revere individual men: on account of their age, and on account of those from whom they are descended.
Their trust for the future preservation of the Constitution was not in future revolutions.
This is the spirit of our Constitution, not only in its settled course, but in all its revolutions.
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.