On the record
If these claims are not well founded, they ought to be honestly abandoned; if they are just, they ought to be steadily and resolutely maintained.
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgEdmund Burke: “If these claims are not well founded, they ought to be honestly abandoned; if they are just, they ought to be steadily…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke argues for the necessity of abandoning unfounded claims while resolutely maintaining just ones.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
Jan 1, 1790
They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.
Jan 1, 1790
But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service.
Jan 1, 1790
If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.
Jan 1, 1790
They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.
Other voices in this conversation
