Political Quotes

Edmund Burke: “We owe more to his insolence than to our own precaution.”

On the record
We owe more to his insolence than to our own precaution.
Said by
Edmund Burke

Editor's note · Context

Burke suggests that they owe more to the enemy's arrogance than to their own caution.

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More from Edmund Burke

Jan 1, 1790

Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what they have left; and standing on the firm ground of the British Constitution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather than attempt to follow in their desperate flights, the aëronauts of…

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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.

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I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.

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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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