“ The body of the community, whenever it can come to act, can meet with no effectual resistance; but till power and right are the same, the whole body of them has no right inconsistent with virtue, and the first of all virtues, prudence. ”
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). copy citation
| Author | Edmund Burke |
|---|---|
| Source | Reflections on the Revolution in France |
| Topic | resistance prudence |
| Date | 1790 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Reflections_on_the_Revolution_in_France |
Context
“multiplying, and dividing, morally and not metaphysically or
mathematically, true moral denominations.
By these theorists the right of the people is almost always sophistically
confounded with their power. The body of the community, whenever it can
come to act, can meet with no effectual resistance; but till power and
right are the same, the whole body of them has no right inconsistent with
virtue, and the first of all virtues, prudence. Men have no right to what
is not reasonable and to what is not for their benefit; for though a
pleasant writer said, liceat perire poetis, when one of them, in cold
blood, is said to have leaped into the flames of a volcanic revolution,”
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