On the record
To communicate peaceably the rights of men is the true mode of her showing her friendship; to force sovereigns to submit to those rights is her mode of hostility.
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgEdmund Burke: “To communicate peaceably the rights of men is the true mode of her showing her friendship; to force sovereigns to submit…”
Editor's note · Context
This statement reflects Burke's belief in the importance of peaceful communication of rights versus coercive actions in international relations.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
Jan 1, 1790
Ill would our ancestors at the Revolution have deserved their fame for wisdom, if they had found no security for their freedom, but in rendering their government feeble in its operations and precarious in its tenure,--if they had been able…
Jan 1, 1790
If all the absurd theories of lawyers and divines were to vitiate the objects in which they are conversant, we should have no law and no religion left in the world.
Jan 1, 1790
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…
Jan 1, 1790
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.
Other voices in this conversation
