“ We must always see with a pity not unmixed with respect the errors of those who are timid and doubtful of themselves with regard to points wherein the happiness of mankind is concerned. ”
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). copy citation
| Author | Edmund Burke |
|---|---|
| Source | Reflections on the Revolution in France |
| Topic | happiness error |
| Date | 1790 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Reflections_on_the_Revolution_in_France |
Context
“public interests, because about them they have no real solicitude, they
abandon wholly to chance; I say to chance, because their schemes have
nothing in experience to prove their tendency beneficial.
We must always see with a pity not unmixed with respect the errors of those
who are timid and doubtful of themselves with regard to points wherein the
happiness of mankind is concerned. But in these gentlemen there is nothing
of the tender, parental solicitude which fears to cut up the infant for the
sake of an experiment. In the vastness of their promises and the confidence
of their predictions, they far outdo all the boasting of empirics.”
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