The truly melancholy part of the policy of systematically making a nation of gamesters is this,--that, though all are forced to play, few can understand the game, and fewer still are in a condition to avail themselves of that knowledge.
Edmund Burke: “The truly melancholy part of the policy of systematically making a nation of gamesters is this,--that, though all are…”
Editor's note · Context
In his critique of the French Revolution's financial policies, Burke describes the detrimental effects of an unstable economy on the populace.
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The House of Lords, for instance, is not morally competent to dissolve the House of Commons,--no, nor even to dissolve itself, nor to abdicate, if it would, its portion in the legislature of the kingdom.
Governments must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past.
Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy.
The ceremony of cashiering kings, of which these gentlemen talk so much at their ease, can rarely, if ever, be performed without force.





