On the record
The question with me is, not whether you have a right to render your people miserable, but whether it is not your interest to make them happy.
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgEdmund Burke: “The question with me is, not whether you have a right to render your people miserable, but whether it is not your…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke questions whether it is in the interest of leaders to make their people miserable rather than happy.
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Jan 1, 1790
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…
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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.
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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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