If your peace be nothing more than a sullen pause from arms, if their quiet be nothing but the meditation of revenge, where smitten pride smarting from its wounds festers into new rancor, neither the act of Henry the Eighth nor its handmaid of this reign will answer any wise end of policy or justice.
Burke warns that a temporary peace achieved through resentment can lead to further conflict and injustice.
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More from Edmund Burke
Their trust for the future preservation of the Constitution was not in future revolutions.
If kings who did not owe their crown to the choice of their people had no title to make laws, what will become of the statute De tallagio non concedendo? of the Petition of Right? of the act of Habeas Corpus?
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.
But supposing they had ranked as they ought to do, and as with us they do actually, the sides of sick-beds are not the academies for forming statesmen and legislators.
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