For a small temporary benefit, the spring of all public credit might be relaxed forever.
Edmund Burke: “For a small temporary benefit, the spring of all public credit might be relaxed forever.”
Editor's note · Context
Burke warns that sacrificing public credit for short-term gains can have long-lasting negative consequences.
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But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service.
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.
Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
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…





