If those gentlemen stopped, when they came to the brink of the gulf of guilt and public misery that yawned before them in the abyss of these dark and bottomless speculations, I forgive their first error: in that they were involved with many.
Edmund Burke: “If those gentlemen stopped, when they came to the brink of the gulf of guilt and public misery that yawned before them…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke reflects on the dangers of misguided speculation and its potential consequences.
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Ill would our ancestors at the Revolution have deserved their fame for wisdom, if they had found no security for their freedom, but in rendering their government feeble in its operations and precarious in its tenure,--if they had been able…
As he is not to obey us, but we are to obey the law in him, our Constitution has made no sort of provision towards rendering him, as a servant, in any degree responsible.
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