On the record
Whether I have acted my part in it well or ill, posterity will judge with more candour than I, or than the present age, with our present passions, can possibly pretend to.
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgEdmund Burke: “Whether I have acted my part in it well or ill, posterity will judge with more candour than I, or than the present age…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke acknowledges that future generations will judge his actions more fairly than those in his own time.
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Jan 1, 1790
I think our happy situation owing to our Constitution,--but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly,--owing in a great measure to what we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have…
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Not being illuminated with the light of which the gentlemen of France tell us they have got so abundant a share, they acted under a strong impression of the ignorance and fallibility of mankind.
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If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.
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