From this temper, men and factions, and nations too, have sacrificed the good of which they had been in assured possession, in favor of wild and irrational expectations.
Edmund Burke: “From this temper, men and factions, and nations too, have sacrificed the good of which they had been in assured…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke observes that people often sacrifice their current well-being for unrealistic expectations of the future.
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I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
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…
They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.
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.





