No! there is no plan of security to be listened to but from those who entertain the same fears with ourselves,--from those who think that the thing to be secured is a great blessing, and the thing against which we would secure it a great mischief.
Burke argues that only those who share the same fears can propose valid security plans.
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More from Edmund Burke
Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
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.
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…
They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.
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