This gradual course, on the other side, will prevent men long under depression from being intoxicated with a large draught of new power, which they always abuse with a licentious insolence.
Edmund Burke: “This gradual course, on the other side, will prevent men long under depression from being intoxicated with a large…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke cautions that those who have been oppressed may misuse newfound power if given too quickly.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
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…
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.
But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service.
They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.





