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Edmund Burke (1729-1797) British statesman and orator
I know many have been taught to think that moderation, in a case like this, is a sort of treason.
There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
The use of force alone is temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed which is perpetually to be conquered.
Make the Revolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery of future revolutions.
To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind.
To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament for the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind.
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
May be the origin of the attributed (but never located): "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong. They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries and in this. But I do say, that in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people.
Never despair; but if you do, work on in despair.
Nobody makes a greater mistake then he who does nothing because he could only do a little.
There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
Custom reconciles us to everything.
A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust.
Our patience will achieve more than our force.
People crushed by law have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those, who have much to hope and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous, more or less.
The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts.
Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.
Quoted in E. A. Bond (ed.). Speeches...in the Trial of Warren Hastings, vol. 1, p. 104 (1859)
I did not obey your instructions. No. I conformed to the instructions of truth and Nature, and maintained your interest, against your opinions, with a constancy that became me. A representative worthy of you ought to be a person of stability. I am to look, indeed, to your opinions, — but to such opinions as you and I must have five years hence. I was not to look to the flash of the day. I knew that you chose me, in my place, along with others, to be a pillar of the state, and not a weathercock on the top of the edifice, exalted for my levity and versatility, and of no use but to indicate the shiftings of every fashionable gale.
All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.
Certainly, Gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinions high respect; their business unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasure, his satisfactions, to theirs, -- and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own.
But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure, -- no, nor from the law and the Constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
http://www.bartleby.com/73/280.html
Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.
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