They thought it a great deal better to make it wise and honest.
Edmund Burke
The Public Record
Edmund Burke was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, and politician who is widely credited as the founder of the cultural and political philosophy of conservatism. Regarded as one of the most influential conservative thinkers and political writers of the 18th century, Burke spent the majority of his career in Great Britain and was elected as a member of Parliament (MP) from 1766 to 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig Party. His writings played a significant role in influencing public views and opinions in both Great Britain and France following the French Revolution in 1789, and he remains a major figure in modern conservative circles.
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I could not at once tear from my heart prejudices which were dear to me, and which bore a resemblance to virtue.
I parted with it as with a limb, but as a limb to save the body: and I would have parted with more, if more had been necessary; anything rather than a fruitless, hopeless, unnatural civil war.
If they are universally depraved, the commonwealth itself is not sound.
It is very unfortunate that we should consider those as rivals, whom we ought to regard as fellow-laborers in a common cause.
But, believe me, if Ireland is beneficial to you, it is so not from the parts in which it is restrained, but from those in which it is left free, though not left unrivalled.
The greater its freedom, the greater must be your advantage.
If you should lose in one way, you will gain in twenty.
When officers are removed, and the offices remain, you may set the gratitude of some against the anger of others, you may oppose the friends you oblige against the enemies you provoke.
An equal tax upon property is reasonable; because the object is of the same quality throughout.
In effect, such a scheme is not calculated to produce, but to prevent reformation.
General principles cannot be debauched or corrupted by interest or caprice; and by those principles I was resolved to work.
First, That all jurisdictions which furnish more matter of expense, more temptation to oppression, or more means and instruments of corrupt influence, than advantage to justice or political administration, ought to be abolished.
To do nothing with them is extinction; to improve them is oppression.
I would make every man look everywhere, except to the intrigue of a court, for the improvement of his circumstances or the security of his fortune.
That you may judge in this instance (and it serves for the rest) of the difference between a great and a little economy, you will please to recollect, Sir, that Wales may be about the tenth part of England in size and population, and…
When Henry the Fourth from that stair ascended the throne, high-minded as he was, he was not willing to kick away the ladder.
On that rock his whole adventure split, his whole scheme of economy was dashed to pieces.
A final acquittance (or a quietus, as they term it) is scarcely ever to be obtained.
An entail of dependence is a bad reward of merit.
May they ever flow with their original purity, and refresh and fructify the commonwealth for ages!
But the use of character is to be a shield against calumny.
If our member's conduct can bear this touch, mark it for sterling.
Why should I, when the things charged are among those upon which I found all my reputation?
Even the Lutheran obstinacy of Sweden has thawed at length, and opened a toleration to all religions.
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