Those who quit their proper character to assume what does not belong to them are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave and of the character they assume.
Writing on the French Revolution, Burke criticizes those who abandon their established roles to take on new ones for which they are unprepared.
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More from Edmund Burke
The improvements of the National Assembly are superficial, their errors fundamental.
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…
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
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.
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