A great empire and little minds go ill together.
Edmund BurkeRead
Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A representative should prioritize their judgment over popular opinion when serving the people.
This quote by Edmund Burke emphasizes the importance of independent judgment in leadership. It argues that a representative has a duty to use their own insight and understanding rather than simply conforming to the opinions of their constituents, suggesting that blind adherence to public sentiment can lead to ineffective and unwise governance.
Themes
RepresentationJudgmentLeadershipOpinionService
In practice
Example use cases
Using this quote in a political speech to emphasize the importance of principled leadership.
More from Edmund Burke
All quotes βTo read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
Edmund BurkeRead
Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.
Edmund BurkeRead
The hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis.
Edmund BurkeRead
Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives preaching of a new gospel.
Edmund BurkeRead
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Edmund BurkeRead
Similar quotes
Christianity, whatever else it is, is an explosion. Unless it is sensational there is simply no sense in it. Unless the Gospel sounds like a gun going off it has not been uttered at all.
Gilbert K. ChestertonRead
Why am I as I am? To understand that of any person, his whole life, from Birth must be reviewed. All of our experiences fuse into our personality. Everything that ever happened to us is an ingredient.
Malcolm XRead
I know ours is a world made by men for men, their dictatorship is so ancient it even extends to language.
Oriana FallaciRead
A single lifetime, even though entirely devoted to the sky, would not be enough for the study of so vast a subject. A time will come when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know things that are so plain to them.
Seneca The YoungerRead
Our fathers founded the first secular government that was ever founded in this world. Recollect that. The first secular government - the first government that said every church has exactly the same rights and no more; every religion has the same rights, and no more.
Robert Green IngersollRead
In all professions each affects a look and an exterior to appear what he wishes the world to believe that he is. Thus we may say that the whole world is made up of appearances.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead