They cannot look back without sacrificing the objects of their immediate duty, which are those of your interest, to endless researches, which can produce no real good, and may expose your affairs to all the ruinous consequences of personal malevolence, both here and at home.
Burke warns against the dangers of losing focus on immediate duties due to excessive scrutiny, which could lead to negative consequences.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
Our people will find employment enough for a truly patriotic, free, and independent spirit, in guarding what they possess from violation.
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.
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
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.
Other voices in this conversation
