Political Quotes

Edmund Burke: “I wish it were true; but it is not: here again we have experience, and experience is against us.”

On the record
I wish it were true; but it is not: here again we have experience, and experience is against us.
Said by
Edmund Burke

Editor's note · Context

Burke expresses skepticism about a hopeful belief, citing experience as contrary evidence.

Share

More from Edmund Burke

Jan 1, 1790

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.

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1790

The improvements of the National Assembly are superficial, their errors fundamental.

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1790

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…

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1790

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…

gutenberg.org

Other voices in this conversation