In saving money I soon can count up all the good I do; but when by a cold penury I blast the abilities of a nation, and stunt the growth of its active energies, the ill I may do is beyond all calculation.
Burke contrasts the measurable benefits of saving money with the unquantifiable harm caused by stifling a nation's potential.
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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…
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.
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.
They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.
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