“ Where men are not acquainted with each other's principles, nor experienced in each other's talents, nor at all practised in their mutual habitudes and dispositions by joint efforts in business; no personal confidence, no friendship, no common interest, subsisting among them; it is evidently impossible that they can act a public part with uniformity, perseverance, or efficacy. ”
Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770). copy citation
| Author | Edmund Burke |
|---|---|
| Source | Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents |
| Topic | perseverance friendship |
| Date | 1770 |
| Language | English |
| Reference | |
| Note | |
| Weblink | https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Thoughts_on_the_Cause_of_the_Present_Disc... |
Context
“They are enabled to fathom it with common counsel, and to oppose it with united strength. Whereas, when they lie dispersed, without concert, order, or discipline, communication is uncertain, counsel difficult, and resistance impracticable. Where men are not acquainted with each other's principles, nor experienced in each other's talents, nor at all practised in their mutual habitudes and dispositions by joint efforts in business; no personal confidence, no friendship, no common interest, subsisting among them; it is evidently impossible that they can act a public part with uniformity, perseverance, or efficacy. In a connexion, the most in considerable man, by adding to the weight of the whole, has his value, and his use; out of it, the greatest talents are wholly unserviceable to the publick. No man, who is not inflamed by vain-glory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsyste-matic endeavours are of power to defeat the subtle designs and united Cabals of ambitious citizens.”
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