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About this quote

What does it mean?
Liberty requires boundaries to be sustainable and meaningful.
In plain terms
Freedom needs limits to actually work.
What can you take from it?
Unrestricted freedom leads to chaos.

Where it applies

  • political theory
  • constitutional design
  • civil rights

Putting it to work

  • drafting laws
  • policy making
  • debating rights

Questions to consider

  • Where should liberty end?
  • Can freedom exist without rules?

Another view

Some argue limits inherently undermine liberty.

More from Edmund Burke

  1. The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts.

    Permalink to quote #84
  2. If any ask me what a free Government is, I answer, that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think so, - and that they, and not I, are the natural…

    Permalink to quote #86
  3. All who have ever written on government are unanimous, that among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.

    Permalink to quote #83

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