It is easy enough to say what shall be done: to cause it to be done,--hic labor, hoc opus.
Edmund Burke: “It is easy enough to say what shall be done: to cause it to be done,--hic labor, hoc opus.”
Editor's note · Context
Burke acknowledges the difficulty of not just proposing actions but actually implementing them.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
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.
This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction.
Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly, and as it were by enchantment, snatched from the humblest rank of subordination, would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness?
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.





