These institutions are the products of enthusiasm; they are the instruments of wisdom.
Edmund Burke: “These institutions are the products of enthusiasm; they are the instruments of wisdom.”
Editor's note · Context
Reflecting on the French Revolution, Burke distinguishes between the origins of institutions and their proper use.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
Our people will find employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they possess from violation.
Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own.
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…
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.





