Power and authority are sometimes bought by kindness; but they can never be begged as alms by an impoverished and defeated violence.
Edmund Burke: “Power and authority are sometimes bought by kindness; but they can never be begged as alms by an impoverished and…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke asserts that power gained through kindness cannot be obtained through violence or desperation.
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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.
I think our happy situation owing to our Constitution,--but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly,--owing in a great measure to what we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have…
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.
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