If we do not take to our aid the foregone studies of men reputed intelligent and learned, we shall be always beginners.
Edmund Burke: “If we do not take to our aid the foregone studies of men reputed intelligent and learned, we shall be always beginners.”
Editor's note · Context
Burke warns that without learning from the wise, we remain perpetual novices.
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Who could flatter himself that these men, suddenly, and as it were by enchantment, snatched from the humblest rank of subordination, would not be intoxicated with their unprepared greatness?
But an absurd theory on one side of a question forms no justification for alleging a false fact or promulgating mischievous maxims on the other.
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