Quote#Wisdom
Nor is prescription of government formed upon blind unmeaning…
Quote byEdmund Burke · 1729–1797
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Speech in the House of Commons against William Pitt's motion for parliamentary reform (7 May 1782), quoted in The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke ...: Miscellaneous speeches, letters, and fragments, Vol. VI (1890), p. 147.
English (original)
Nor is prescription of government formed upon blind unmeaning prejudices—for man is a most unwise, and a most wise, being. The individual is foolish. The multitude, for the moment, is foolish, when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise, and when time is given to it, as a species it almost always acts right.
— Edmund Burke
More from Edmund Burke
Parties in religion and politics make sufficient discoveries concerning each other, to give a sober man a proper caution against them all.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.
I need not excuse myself to your Lordship, nor, I think, to any honest man, for the zeal I have shown in this cause; for it is an honest zeal, and in a good cause. I have defended natural religion against a confederacy of atheists and …
In vain you tell me that artificial government is good, but that I fall out only with the abuse. The thing! the thing itself is the abuse!
These few have the passions of the one; and they unite to strengthen themselves, and to secure the gratification of their lawless passions at the expense of the general good.