A great empire and little minds go ill together.
Edmund BurkeRead
Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue.
Interpretation
Power corrupts human virtues over time.
In this quote, Edmund Burke highlights the detrimental effect of power on human nature, suggesting that the accumulation of power can lead individuals to lose their compassion, kindness, and moral virtues. As power strengthens, it has the potential to erode the very qualities that make us humane and gentle, ultimately leading to a more brutal and unfeeling character.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about political leadership and ethics.
A great empire and little minds go ill together.
To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.
The hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis.
Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives preaching of a new gospel.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
As soon as one identifies, challenges and overcomes illegitimate power, he or she is an anarchist. Most people are anarchists. What they call themselves doesnβt matter to me. The world is full of suffering, distress, violence and catastrophes. Students must decide: does something concern you or not? I say: look around, analyze the problems, ask yourself what you can do and set out on the work!
Itβs in the very trickery that it pleases me. But show me how the trick is done, and I have lost my interest therein.
. . . [The Judicial Branch] may truly be said to have neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment; and must ultimately depend upon the aid of the executive arm even for the efficacy of its judgments.
In our loss and fear we craved the acts of religion, the ceremonies that allow us to admit our helplessness, our dependence on the great forces we do not understand.
Every generation gets the Constitution that it deserves. As the central preoccupations of an era make their way into the legal system, the Supreme Court eventually weighs in, and nine lawyers in robes become oracles of our national identity.
I call myself a Peaceful Warrior... because the battles we fight are on the inside.
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