Edmund Burke Quotes

Snap your fingers and somebody runs / You don't care how they feel just as long as they come / Got your head in the stars now you've come this far / Just who do you think you are?

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak.

Power confuses itself with virtue and tends also to take itself for omnipotence

Whether elected or appointed he considers himself the Lord's anointed, and indeed the ointment lingers on him so thick you can't get your fingers on him.

One thing I hope I'll never be is drunk with my own power. And anybody who says I am will never work in this town again.

Money and fame made me believe I was entitled. I was wrong and foolish.

The Arrogance of Power

Politicians. Little Tin Gods on Wheels.

We’ve been an arrogant country.

Power is a very peculiar thing. It's like the ego. The ego's only there to keep you above water. Once we realize something good about ourselves, we have a tendency to abuse the gift.

It's easy to get swept up in the trappings of that sort of lifestyle, but I've been doing it for long enough that I know how easy it is to fall victim to that sort of arrogance and cockiness that celebrity culture can bring about, in young men especially.

Fools take to themselves the respect that is given to their office.

The British suffer from a most unfortunate superiority complex - unjustified even under Victoria and most certainly hopelessly out-of-date today.

I assumed that everything must yield to me, that the entire universe had to flatter my whims, and that I had the right to satisfy them at will.

Success is always dangerous. It can make an asshole out of anybody.

The gods made the earth for all men t' share. Only when the kings come with their crowns and steel swords, they claimed it was all theirs. "My trees," they said, "you can't eat them apples. My stream, you can't fish here. My wood, you're not t' hunt. My earth, my water, my castle, my daughter, keep your hands away or I'll chop 'em off, but maybe if you kneel t' me I'll let you have a sniff." You call us thieves, but at least a thief has t' be brave and clever and quick. A kneeler only has t' kneel.

Great deservers grow Intolerable presumers.

The arrogance that accompanies merit offends us even more than the arrogance of people who are lacking in merit: since merit itself offends us.

Is it arrogance if one is truly superior?

Vanity is a confounded donkey, very apt to put his head between his legs, and chuck us over; but pride is a fine horse, that will carry us over the ground, and enable us to distance our fellow-travelers.

He whose pride oppresses the humble may perhaps be humbled, but will never be humble.

Some men who know that they are great are so very haughty withal and insufferable that their acquaintance discover their greatness only by the tax of humility which they are obliged to pay as the price of their friendship.

The opposite of humility is arrogance--the belief that we are wiser or better than others. Arrogance promotes separation rather than community. It looms like a brick wall between us and those from whom we could learn.

Maintain a sense of humor. People who take themselves too seriously are power-crazy. If they win it will be haircuts for all. Beware of power freaks.