Conflict with Duty

Our antagonist is our helper.  This amicable conflict with difficulty obliges us to an intimate acquaintance with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations.  It will not suffer us to be superficial.

-       Edmund Burke[1]

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[1] Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was an Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher who, after relocating to Great Britain, served for many years in the British House of Commons as a member of the Whig party. He is mainly remembered for his support of the American colonies in the dispute with King George III and Britain that led to the American Revolution and for his strong opposition to the French Revolution. The latter made Burke one of the leading figures within the conservative faction of the Whig party (which he dubbed the “Old Whigs”), in opposition to the pro-French-Revolution “New Whigs,” led by Charles James Fox. Burke also published a philosophical work where he attempted to define emotions and passions, and how they are triggered in a person. Burke worked on aesthetics and founded the Annual Register, a political review. He is often regarded as the philosophical founder of Anglo-American conservatism.  (Source: Wikipedia)