It is easy enough to say what shall be done: to cause it to be done,--hic labor, hoc opus.
Edmund Burke: “It is easy enough to say what shall be done: to cause it to be done,--hic labor, hoc opus.”
Editor's note · Context
Burke acknowledges the difficulty of not just proposing actions but actually implementing them.
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Whatever they are, I wish my countrymen rather to recommend to our neighbors the example of the British Constitution than to take models from them for the improvement of our own.
But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service.
Not being illuminated with the light of which the gentlemen of France tell us they have got so abundant a share, they acted under a strong impression of the ignorance and fallibility of mankind.
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.





