He had vices in his composition, and great ones; but they were the vices of a great mind: ambition, the malady of every extensive genius,--and avarice, the madness of the wise: one chiefly actuated his youth,--the other governed his age.
Burke reflects on the dual nature of a great mind, acknowledging both ambition and avarice as inherent vices.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
There are some follies which baffle argument, which go beyond ridicule, and which excite no feeling in us but disgust; and therefore I say no more upon it.
Every honest mind, every true lover of liberty and humanity, must rejoice to find that injustice is not always good policy, nor rapine the high-road to riches.
The improvements of the National Assembly are superficial, their errors fundamental.
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…
Other voices in this conversation
