In all the views of receipt, expenditure, and personal employment, a sober legislator would carefully compare the possessor whom he was recommended to expel with the stranger who was proposed to fill his place.
Edmund Burke: “In all the views of receipt, expenditure, and personal employment, a sober legislator would carefully compare the…”
Editor's note · Context
From his critique of the French Revolution, this advises legislators to carefully consider the consequences of replacing established possessors with new ones.
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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…
Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.
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