On the record
They think there is nothing worth pursuit, but that which they can handle, which they can measure with a two-foot rule, which they can tell upon ten fingers.
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgThey think there is nothing worth pursuit, but that which they can handle, which they can measure with a two-foot rule, which they can tell upon ten fingers.
Burke highlights the materialistic mindset of some politicians, who only value what can be physically measured.
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Though a king may abdicate for his own person, he cannot abdicate for the monarchy.
The ceremony of cashiering kings, of which these gentlemen talk so much at their ease, can rarely, if ever, be performed without force.
Governments must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past.
The people of England will not ape the fashions they have never tried, nor go back to those which they have found mischievous on trial.