On the record
If the discretion of power is once let loose upon property, we can be at no loss to determine whose power and what discretion it is that will prevail at last.
Said by
Edmund Burke
Source
gutenberg.orgEdmund Burke: “If the discretion of power is once let loose upon property, we can be at no loss to determine whose power and what…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke highlights the risks of unchecked power over property, suggesting that it leads to inevitable dominance by the most powerful.
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More from Edmund Burke
Jan 1, 1790
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…
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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.
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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…
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Let us imitate their caution, if we wish to deserve their fortune or to retain their bequests.
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