Compute your gains; see what is got by those extravagant and presumptuous speculations which have taught your leaders to despise all their predecessors, and all their contemporaries, and even to despise themselves, until the moment in which they became truly despicable.
Burke challenges the French revolutionaries to assess the actual benefits of their radical theories, which led them to despise tradition and ultimately themselves.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
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.
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
Other voices in this conversation
