The ministers of popularity will lose all their credit at a stroke, if they pursue any of those means necessary to give life, vigor, and consistence to government.
Edmund Burke: “The ministers of popularity will lose all their credit at a stroke, if they pursue any of those means necessary to give…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke warns that leaders who rely on popularity will lose credibility if they take necessary but unpopular actions.
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This idea of a liberal descent inspires us with a sense of habitual native dignity, which prevents that upstart insolence almost inevitably adhering to and disgracing those who are the first acquirers of any distinction.
Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understood but too well?
The speculative line of demarcation, where obedience ought to end and resistance must begin, is faint, obscure, and not easily definable.
A few years ago I should be ashamed to overload a matter so capable of supporting itself by the then unnecessary support of any argument; but this seditious, unconstitutional doctrine is now publicly taught, avowed, and printed.





