He takes a poor credit even from his defeat, and covers impotence under the mask of lenity.
Edmund Burke: “He takes a poor credit even from his defeat, and covers impotence under the mask of lenity.”
Editor's note · Context
Burke comments on the tendency of leaders to disguise their failures as leniency.
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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.
They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.
Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what they have left; and standing on the firm ground of the British Constitution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather than attempt to follow in their desperate flights, the aëronauts of…
Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.





