Political Quotes

Edmund Burke: Has any of these gentlemen who are so eager to govern all mankind shown himself possessed of the first qualification…

On the record
Has any of these gentlemen who are so eager to govern all mankind shown himself possessed of the first qualification towards government, some knowledge of the object, and of the difficulties which occur in the task they have undertaken?
Said by
Edmund Burke

Editor's note · Context

Burke critiques those eager to govern without understanding the complexities of leadership.

Share

More from Edmund Burke

Jan 1, 1790

The ceremony of cashiering kings, of which these gentlemen talk so much at their ease, can rarely, if ever, be performed without force.

gutenberg.org
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.

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1790

Who could conceive that men who are habitually meddling, daring, subtle, active, of litigious dispositions and unquiet minds, would easily fall back into their old condition of obscure contention, and laborious, low, and unprofitable…

gutenberg.org
Jan 1, 1790

Who could doubt but that, at any expense to the state, of which they understood nothing, they must pursue their private interests, which they understood but too well?

gutenberg.org

Other voices in this conversation