It is the direct office of wisdom to look to the consequences of the acts we do: if it be not this, it is worth nothing, it is out of place and of function, and a downright fool is as capable of government as Charles Fox.
Edmund Burke: “It is the direct office of wisdom to look to the consequences of the acts we do: if it be not this, it is worth nothing…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke emphasizes the importance of wisdom in governance, particularly in considering the consequences of actions.
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When such an unwarrantable maxim is once established, that no throne is lawful but the elective, no one act of the princes who preceded this era of fictitious election can be valid.
But the king of Great Britain obeys no other person; all other persons are individually, and collectively too, under him, and owe to him a legal obedience.
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.
The people of England will not ape the fashions they have never tried, nor go back to those which they have found mischievous on trial.





