Political Quotes

Edmund Burke: “If we cry, like children, for the moon, like children we must cry on.”

On the record
If we cry, like children, for the moon, like children we must cry on.
Said by
Edmund Burke

Editor's note · Context

Burke uses this metaphor to illustrate the futility of unrealistic desires.

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Jan 1, 1790

If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.

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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…

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