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| Edmund Burke
A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist. By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation. Falsehood is a perennial spring. He had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame; a passion which is the instinct of all great souls. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature. It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare. It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do. Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. Manners are of more importance than laws... Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backwards to their ancestors. Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation. Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all. Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil. Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives preaching of a new gospel. The most important of all revolutions, a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions. The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination. When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot possibly be estimated. From that moment we have no compass to govern us, nor can we know distinctly to what port to steer. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe. |
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