(?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)
Edmund Burke

“But one of the first and most leading principles on which the commonwealth and the laws are consecrated, is lest the temporary possessors and life-renters in it, unmindful of what they have received from their ancestors, or of what is due to their posterity, should act as if they were the entire masters; that they should not think it amongst their rights to cut off the entail, or commit waste on the inheritance, by destroying at their pleasure the whole original fabric of their society; hazarding to leave to those who come after them, a ruin instead of an habitation - and teaching these successors as little to respect their contrivances, as they had themselves respected the institutions of their forefathers. By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of summer.”

Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
Read more quotes from Edmund Burke


Share this quote:
Share on Twitter

Friends Who Liked This Quote

To see what your friends thought of this quote, please sign up!


This Quote Is From

Reflections on the Revolution in France Reflections on the Revolution in France by Edmund Burke
7,188 ratings, average rating, 476 reviews

Browse By Tag