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The great inlet by which a colour for oppression has entered into the world is by one man's pretending to determine concerning the happiness of another.

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
Another
Inlet
Power
Concerning
Great
Entered
Men
Pretending
World
Oppression
Colour
Determine
Happiness

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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Crimes lead into one another. They who are capable of being forgers, are capable of being incendiaries.
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Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant.
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The religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principles of resistance: it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion.
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Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures.
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Thank God, men that art greatly guilty are never wise.
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There ought to be system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
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Parliament is a deliberate assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole where, not local purpose, not local prejudices ought to guide but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole.
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Men have no right to what is not reasonable, and to what is not for their benefit.
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What is it we all seek for in an election? To answer its real purposes, you must first possess the means of knowing the fitness of your man and then you must retain some hold upon him by personal obligation or dependence.
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Equity money is dynamic and debt money is static.
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But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.
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It is by sympathy we enter into the concerns of others, that we are moved as they are moved, and are never suffered to be indifferent spectators of almost anything which men can do or suffer. For sympathy may be considered as a sort of substitution, by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in many respects as he is affected.
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No men can act with effect who do not act in concert no men can act in concert who do not act with confidence no men can act with confidence who are not bound together with common opinions, common affections, and common interests.
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Corrupt influence is itself the perennial spring of all prodigality, and of all disorder it loads us more than millions of debt takes away vigor from our arms, wisdom from our councils, and every shadow of authority and credit from the most venerable parts of our constitution.
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Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all it combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. In this partnership all men have equal rights but not to equal things.
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God has sometimes converted wickedness into madness and it is to the credit of human reason that men who are not in some degree mad are never capable of being in the highest degree wicked.
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If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.
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People crushed by law, have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws and those who have much hope and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous.
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Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
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I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.
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