What is worse, there are very few of those virtues which are not capable of being imitated, and even outdone in many of their most striking effects, by the worst of vices.
Edmund Burke: “What is worse, there are very few of those virtues which are not capable of being imitated, and even outdone in many of…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke warns that many virtues can be mimicked by vices, undermining their value.
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Those who are servants in name, as well as in effect, do not like to be told of their situation, their duty, and their obligations.
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.
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.
They look upon the legal hereditary succession of their crown as among their rights, not as among their wrongs,--as a benefit, not as a grievance,--as a security for their liberty, not as a badge of servitude.





