On the record
The great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of the great.
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgEdmund Burke: “The great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of the great.”
Editor's note · Context
Burke argues that the powerful must adhere to prudence and virtue, or they risk losing their authority.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
Jan 1, 1790
They look on the frame of their commonwealth, such as it stands, to be of inestimable value; and they conceive the undisturbed succession of the crown to be a pledge of the stability and perpetuity of all the other members of our…
Jan 1, 1790
The House of Lords, for instance, is not morally competent to dissolve the House of Commons,--no, nor even to dissolve itself, nor to abdicate, if it would, its portion in the legislature of the kingdom.
Jan 1, 1790
Governments must be abused and deranged indeed, before it can be thought of; and the prospect of the future must be as bad as the experience of the past.
Jan 1, 1790
Ill would our ancestors at the Revolution have deserved their fame for wisdom, if they had found no security for their freedom, but in rendering their government feeble in its operations and precarious in its tenure,--if they had been able…
Other voices in this conversation
