If honesty be true policy with regard to the transient interest of individuals, it is much more certainly so with regard to the permanent interests of communities.
Edmund Burke: “If honesty be true policy with regard to the transient interest of individuals, it is much more certainly so with regard…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke argues that honesty is essential for both individual and communal interests.
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Not being illuminated with the light of which the gentlemen of France tell us they have got so abundant a share, they acted under a strong impression of the ignorance and fallibility of mankind.
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…
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.
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.





