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Edmund Burke Quotes about Power

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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

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.

Edmund Burke
Power, Years, Relief
'Letter to a Member of the National Assembly' (1791) p. 12

Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue.

Edmund Burke
Power, Mind, Politics
"The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke: Collected in Three Volumes".

Those who have been intoxicated with power... can never willingly abandon it.

Edmund Burke
Power, Political, Term Limits

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.

Edmund Burke
Power, Government, Law
Letter to Charles James Fox, 8 October 1777, in 'The Correspondence of Edmund Burke' vol. 3 (1961)

Law and arbitrary power are at eternal enmity.

Edmund Burke
Power, Law, Arbitrary
Edmund Burke (1963). “Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches”, p.479, Transaction Publishers

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
Power, Men, World
Edmund Burke (1852). “The Works and Correspondance of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke”, p.23

All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust, and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society.

Edmund Burke
Trust, Power, Ideas
Edmund Burke (1860). “The Works of Edmund Burke: With a Memoir”, p.496

Nothing, indeed, but the possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man.

Edmund Burke
Character, Power, Men
Edmund Burke (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)”, p.3876, Delphi Classics

For as wealth is power, so all power will infallibly draw wealth to itself by some means or other; and when men are left no way of ascertaining their profits but by their means of obtaining them, those means will be increased to infinity.

Edmund Burke
Mean, Power, Politics
"The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke".

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
Ambition, Power, May
Edmund Burke (1807). “The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke”, p.116

I know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power.

Edmund Burke
Power, Sublime, Modification
Edmund Burke (1824). “A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful”, p.62

Power, in whatever hands, is rarely guilty of too strict limitations on itself.

Edmund Burke
Power, Hands, Guilty
Edmund Burke (1811). “Maxims and opinions, moral, political and economical, with characters, from the works of ... Edmund Burke”, p.46

To govern according to the sense and agreement of the interests of the people is a great and glorious object of governance. This object cannot be obtained but through the medium of popular election, and popular election is a mighty evil.

Edmund Burke
Responsibility, Power, Agreement

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