This example of Rome, which has been derived from the most ancient times, and the most flourishing period of the Roman Empire, (but not of the Roman agriculture,) may serve as a great caution to all governments not to attempt to feed the people out of the hands of the magistrates.
This quote serves as a cautionary note to governments about the risks of controlling food supply through bureaucratic means.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
They look on the frame of their commonwealth, such as it stands, to be of inestimable value; and they conceive the undisturbed succession of the crown to be a pledge of the stability and perpetuity of all the other members of our…
By adhering in this manner and on those principles to our forefathers, we are guided, not by the superstition of antiquarians, but by the spirit of philosophic analogy.
The ceremony of cashiering kings, of which these gentlemen talk so much at their ease, can rarely, if ever, be performed without force.
Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity.
Other voices in this conversation
