“The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.”

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to…" by Edmund Burke?
Edmund Burke photo
Edmund Burke 270
Anglo-Irish statesman 1729–1797

Related quotes

Peter Marshall photo
José Ortega Y Gasset photo

“It is not that one ought not to do just what one pleases; it is simply that one cannot do other than what each of us has to do, has to be. The only way out is to refuse to do what has to be done, but this does not set us free to do something else just because it pleases us. In this matter we only possess a negative freedom of will, a noluntas.”

We can quite well turn away from our true destiny, but only to fall a prisoner in the deeper dungeons of our destiny. … Theoretic truths not only are disputable, but their whole meaning and force lie in their being disputed, they spring from discussion. They live as long as they are discussed, and they are made exclusively for discussion. But destiny — what from a vital point of view one has to be or has not to be — is not discussed, it is either accepted or rejected. If we accept it, we are genuine; if not, we are the negation, the falsification of ourselves. Destiny does not consist in what we feel we should like to do; rather is it recognised in its clear features in the consciousness that we must do what we do not feel like doing.
Source: The Revolt of the Masses (1929), Chapter XI: The Self-Satisfied Age

Michael Jackson photo

“I try to do what's right for me,
But no-one sees the way I see,
And then I try to please them so,
But how far can this pleasing go?”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

Destiny (1977)

Piet Hein photo

“Freedom means
you're free to do
just whatever
pleases you;
— if, of course
that is to say,
what you please
is what you may.”

Piet Hein (1905–1996) Danish puzzle designer, mathematician, author, poet

Freedom
Grooks

Alan Keyes photo

“Freedom does not mean doing what you can get away with, doing what you please. It means, instead, having the opportunity to do what you ought to do--for family and for community and for humanity as a whole.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Speech at Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, March 4, 2000. http://renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/00_03_04fairmont.htm.
2000

George Sutherland photo

“The liberty of the individual to do as he pleases, even in innocent matters, is not absolute. It must frequently yield to the common good.”

George Sutherland (1862–1942) Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, United States Senator, member of the United States House of Re…

Adkins v. Children's Hospital, 261 U.S. 560 (1923)

Rockwell Kent photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo
Charles Cooley photo
Ricky Gervais photo

“Animals are not here for us to do as we please with. We are not their superiors, we are their equals. We are their family. Be kind to them.”

Ricky Gervais (1961) English comedian, actor, director, producer, musician, writer, and former radio presenter

Twitter, 17 November 2013; quoted in "Ricky Gervais Is PETA’s Person of the Year," PETA (23 December 2013) https://www.peta.org/blog/ricky-gervais-petas-person-year/

Related topics