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Among precautions against ambition, it may not be amiss to take precautions against our own. I must fairly say, I dread our own power and our own ambition: I dread our being too much dreaded.

Edmund Burke

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Edmund Burke
Age: 68 †
Born: 1729
Born: January 12
Died: 1797
Died: July 9
Philosopher
Politician
Statesman
Writer
Dublin city
May
Amiss
Take
Dreaded
Must
Precaution
Much
Dread
Fairly
Ambition
Among
Power
Precautions

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In all forms of government the people is the true legislator.
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Between craft and credulity, the voice of reason is stifled.
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If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.
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Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations - wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.
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Custom reconciles us to everything.
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For there is in mankind an unfortunate propensity to make themselves, their views and their works, the measure of excellence in every thing whatsoever
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Hypocrisy is no cheap vice nor can our natural temper be masked for many years together.
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Dogs are indeed the most social, affectionate, and amiable animals of the whole brute creation.
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Nothing, indeed, but the possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man.
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Somebody has said, that a king may make a nobleman but he cannot make a gentleman.
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Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.
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The poorest being that crawls on earth, contending to save itself from injustice and oppression, is an object respectable in the eyes of God and man.
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The most favourable laws can do very little towards the happiness of people when the disposition of the ruling power is adverse to them.
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Those who attempt to level never equalize
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To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
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Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
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Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power but they will never look to anything but power for their relief.
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Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.
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Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.
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In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature.
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