Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and excess, is tempered with an awful gravity.
Edmund Burke: “Always acting as if in the presence of canonized forefathers, the spirit of freedom, leading in itself to misrule and…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke explains how the reverence for ancestors and tradition provides a necessary check on the potentially destructive excesses of unbridled freedom.
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