Contending for an imaginary power, we begin to acquire the spirit of domination, and to lose the relish of honest equality.
Edmund Burke: “Contending for an imaginary power, we begin to acquire the spirit of domination, and to lose the relish of honest…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke critiques the pursuit of imaginary power, which leads to a loss of genuine equality.
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Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what they have left; and standing on the firm ground of the British Constitution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather than attempt to follow in their desperate flights, the aëronauts of…
They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.
But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service.
They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.





