Mistaking malignity for sagacity, they are soon led to cast off all hope from a good administration of affairs, and come to think that all reformation depends, not on a change of actors, but upon an alteration in the machinery.
Burke warns that misinterpreting malice for wisdom can lead people to believe that reform requires changing the system rather than the people in power.
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More from Edmund Burke
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?
A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy.
But supposing they had ranked as they ought to do, and as with us they do actually, the sides of sick-beds are not the academies for forming statesmen and legislators.
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