On the record
It is not within, the rules of dexterous conduct to make an acknowledgment of a contested title in your enemy before you are morally certain that your recognition will secure his friendship.
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgEdmund Burke: “It is not within, the rules of dexterous conduct to make an acknowledgment of a contested title in your enemy before you…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke emphasizes the importance of certainty in diplomatic recognition to avoid empowering adversaries.
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They rob only to enable them to cheat; but in a very short time they defeat the ends both of the robbery and the fraud, by making out accounts for other purposes, which blow up their whole apparatus of force and of deception.
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