It was this abuse and perversion, which vanity makes even of hypocrisy, which has driven Rousseau to record a life not so much as checkered or spotted here and there with virtues, or even distinguished by a single good action.
Edmund Burke: “It was this abuse and perversion, which vanity makes even of hypocrisy, which has driven Rousseau to record a life not…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke argues that vanity distorts even the concept of hypocrisy, leading to a flawed self-portrait by Rousseau.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
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…
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…
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.
They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.





