Those who give and those who receive arbitrary power are alike criminal; and there is no man but is bound to resist it to the best of his power, wherever it shall show its face to the world.
Edmund Burke: “Those who give and those who receive arbitrary power are alike criminal; and there is no man but is bound to resist it…”
On the record
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgEditor's note · Context
Burke declares that both those who grant and those who accept arbitrary power are culpable and must resist it.
Share
More from Edmund Burke
Jan 1, 1790
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.
Jan 1, 1790
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
Jan 1, 1790
They will become flatterers instead of legislators,--the instruments, not the guides of the people.
Jan 1, 1790
I think our happy situation owing to our Constitution,--but owing to the whole of it, and not to any part singly,--owing in a great measure to what we have left standing in our several reviews and reformations, as well as to what we have…





