Little to Recommend my Opinions

 

 

Paulum habeo quo sententias meas commendem præter longam animadversionem atque magnam æquitatem. Veniunt ex uno, qui numquam fuit potestati minister, numquam auctoritati adulator; et qui in ultimis gestis non vult rationem prodere vitæ suæ. Veniunt ex uno, pæne totus cujus labor publicus fuit pro libertate aliorum; ex uno, in cujus anima nullum iræ durabilis ac vehementis umquam est incensum nisi a quod putabat tyrannitatem; et qui e parte sua conatuum, quo boni moliuntur oppresionem divitem imminuere, rapit horas quibus de vobis usus est; et qui, sic faciens, persuadetur se non ab officio solito erravisse; veniunt ex uno, qui honores, gratias atque præmia paulo cupit, nec ullo modo expectat; qui nullam habet contemptionem famæ, nec metum invidiæ; qui dissensiones arcet, sed sententiam proferat; ex uno, qui vult constantiam servare, sed qui hanc servet mutando rationes suas ut unitatem finis paret, et qui, cum videt æquitatem sui navis imminueri a nimio onere in una parte, optat portare modum parvulum rationis suæ ad partem qua æquitas optime præservetur.

 

I have little to recommend my opinions but long observation and much impartiality. They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness; and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life. They come from one almost the whole of whose public exertion has been a struggle for the liberty of others; from one in whose breast no anger, durable or vehement, has ever been kindled but by what he considered as tyranny; and who snatches from his share in the endeavors which are used by good men to discredit opulent oppression the hours he has employed on your affairs; and who in so doing persuades himself he has not departed from his usual office; they come from one who desires honours, distinctions, and emoluments but little, and who expects them not at all; who has no contempt for fame, and no fear of obloquy; who shuns contention, though he will hazard an opinion; from one who wishes to preserve consistency, but who would preserve consistency by varying his means to secure the unity of his end, and, when the equipoise of the vessel in which he sails may be endangered by overloading it upon one side, is desirous of carrying the small weight of his reasons to that which may preserve its equipoise.

 

—Edmund Burke, De Rebus Novis in Francia (On the Revolution in France), making a manful attempt to snatch the “World’s Longest  Ever Sentence” award from Cicero