On the record
They cannot preserve their credit, but by betraying that authority of which they are the guardians.
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgEdmund Burke: “They cannot preserve their credit, but by betraying that authority of which they are the guardians.”
Editor's note · Context
Burke claims that those in power can only maintain their credibility by upholding the authority they are meant to protect.
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More from Edmund Burke
Jan 1, 1790
Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
Jan 1, 1790
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.
Jan 1, 1790
Those who know what virtuous liberty is cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths.
Jan 1, 1790
In some people I see great liberty, indeed; in many, if not in the most, an oppressive, degrading servitude.
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