On the record
When, therefore, an establishment would persecute an opinion in possession, it sets against it all the powerful prejudices of human nature.
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgEdmund Burke: “When, therefore, an establishment would persecute an opinion in possession, it sets against it all the powerful…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke argues that when an establishment persecutes an existing opinion, it faces the inherent biases of human nature.
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More from Edmund Burke
Jan 1, 1790
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.
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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.
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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.
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Do they mean to attaint and disable backwards all the kings that have reigned before the Revolution, and consequently to stain the throne of England with the blot of a continual usurpation?
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