Straight from today’s Quotle — here’s who really said it, and the story behind it. Play again

Who really said it

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse

Spoken by Edmund Burke 1729–1797 · Whig MP, orator and political philosopher
Verified Free to reuse

Burke said it in the House of Commons on 7 February 1771, backing a motion for leave to bring in a bill to fix the rights of electors after the Commons had thrown out John Wilkes. His own sentence is longer than the poster version: “First, because the greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.” The text survives among Burke’s manuscript papers and is printed in his collected Works ↗.

Last verified 4 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Verified quote & credit

“The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse” Edmund Burke, Speech Relative to the Middlesex Election, House of Commons, 7 February 1771. Burke's full sentence begins “First, because…”. Verified at Quotle.info Verbatim: “First, because the greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.”

Can you use it?

Free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations — no permission or licence needed.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Edmund Burke — Anglo-Irish MP, orator and founder of modern conservatism. Theme: "The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Speech
Speech Relative to the Middlesex Election
Delivered
House of Commons, 7 February 1771
Printed in
The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke, vol. VII (Boston: Little, Brown, 1877), p. 62
Text
From Burke’s own preserved manuscript papers, published after his death

The substance of the question is, to put bounds to your own power by the rules and principles of law. This is, I am sensible, a difficult thing to the corrupt, grasping, and ambitious part of human nature. But the very difficulty argues and enforces the necessity of it. First, because the greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse. Since the Revolution, at least, the power of the nation has all flowed with a full tide into the House of Commons. Secondly, because the House of Commons, as it is the most powerful, is the most corruptible part of the whole Constitution. Commons, 7 Feb 1771

Transcribed from the 1886 Cassell edition of Thoughts on the Present Discontents, and Speeches; the same sentences read identically in the 1877 Little, Brown Works, vol. VII, p. 62.

Scanned edition
Works, vol. VII (Little, Brown, 1877), p. 62
Read the full speech at Project Gutenberg

How the line got here

  • 1769 — The quarrel behind the speech. The Commons expelled the radical John Wilkes, voided his re-election three times, and seated his beaten rival Henry Luttrell, who had polled 296 votes to Wilkes’s 1,143. Middlesex election affair ↗
  • 7 February 1771 — Burke speaks for a motion for leave to bring in a bill to ascertain the rights of the electors. The motion is rejected, 167 to 103. His text runs: “First, because the greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.” Works, vol. VII ↗
  • Posthumous printing — Burke’s editors record that he had meant to publish some of his Parliamentary speeches and kept fragments and detached notes toward it; the Middlesex Election speech was among those “found in the same imperfect state.” What we read is his own preserved text, not a reporter’s transcript. editors’ note ↗
  • Television — the shortened line reached a new audience through Criminal Minds, where Jennifer Jareau recites it, credited to Burke, in the season-nine episode “The Return.” Wikiquote ↗
Public domain

Burke died in 1797, and the speech reaches us through nineteenth-century printings of his collected Works — the editions checked here are dated 1877, 1886 and 1887, all long before the 1931 US copyright cut-off. Both Burke’s words and these printings are in the public domain.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

What goes wrong with this one

The name is right — this really is Burke. What travels badly is everything around it: the line is quoted almost everywhere with no work, no date and no context, and in a form Burke did not quite write.

The poster version Truncated

Burke’s sentence begins “First, because…” It is the first of two numbered reasons for binding the Commons by law — the second being that the Commons “as it is the most powerful, is the most corruptible part of the whole Constitution” — not a free-standing epigram. 1886 Cassell text ↗

Quotation aggregators Unsourced

BrainyQuote’s page for the line gives Burke’s birth and death dates and his nationality — and no speech, no work, no year at all. see the page ↗

Lord Acton Different line

The Burke line is often shelved beside “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” — but that is Lord Acton, writing to Bishop Mandell Creighton in 1887. Different man, different sentence. Liberty Fund ↗

Burke did say it — in the House of Commons on 7 February 1771 — and his own sentence opens “First, because…” The Works of Edmund Burke, vol. VII ↗

Context

Why he said it

In 1769 the House of Commons expelled the radical John Wilkes, voided his re-election three times running, and finally handed the Middlesex seat to Henry Luttrell — a man the county had beaten by 1,143 votes to 296. The affair ↗ amounted to the Commons claiming a power to decide who was allowed to sit in it, with no law saying so.

On 7 February 1771 Burke rose to support a motion for leave to bring in a bill that would write the electors’ rights into law. He was not arguing that the Commons was uniquely wicked; he was arguing the opposite — that because so much of the nation’s power had drained into that one chamber, that chamber above all needed a line drawn round it. The famous sentence is the load-bearing beam of that argument.

Our judgments stink in the nostrils of the people.

How this speech survived at all

The text reaches us in an unusual way. Burke’s editors explain that he had intended to publish several of his Parliamentary speeches and had kept fragments and detached notes toward that end; the Middlesex Election speech was among those “found in the same imperfect state” in his manuscript papers. What is printed is therefore Burke’s own preserved wording rather than a shorthand writer’s record of the chamber. the editors’ note ↗

He lost. The editors’ headnote to the speech records that the motion — for leave to bring in a bill to ascertain the rights of the electors in respect to the eligibility of persons to serve in Parliament — was rejected by 167 votes to 103.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Power Justice

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

The Works of Edmund Burke, Vol. VII (1887)gutenberg.org

Full text of the Speech on the motion of 7 February 1771 relative to the Middlesex Election, plus the editors’ note on how the manuscript survived.
Thoughts on the Present Discontents, and Speeches (1886)gutenberg.org

Cassell’s National Library edition, edited by Henry Morley; carries the same speech under the heading “Speech on the Middlesex Election, February, 1771.”
Works of Edmund Burke, vol. VII — scanned, p. 62archive.org

Page images of the 1877 Little, Brown edition showing the sentence in print.
Edmund Burke — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Lists the line in the sourced 1770s section, cited to the Speech on the Middlesex Election (February 1771).
Middlesex election affairen.wikipedia.org

Background on the Wilkes expulsions and the seating of Henry Luttrell that prompted the 1771 bill.
Lord Acton to Bishop Creighton, 1887oll.libertyfund.org

The other famous power maxim, for readers who conflate the two: Acton’s “power tends to corrupt” letter.

The man who said it

Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke

1729–1797 · Anglo-Irish MP, orator and founder of modern conservatism

Edmund Burke was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher and politician, widely credited as the founder of the cultural and political philosophy of conservatism. He sat in the House of Commons as a Rockingham Whig for Wendover, then Bristol, then Malton, and made his name as an orator on the American colonies, the government of India, and the limits of Parliament’s own power. Much of what we quote from him survives not as reported speech but as manuscript he kept himself — including this line.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Edmund Burke, “Speech Relative to the Middlesex Election, February 7, 1771,” in The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke, vol. 7 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1877), 62.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse’?” Last verified 4 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-greater-the-power-the-more-dangerous-the-abuse/

Something wrong on this page?

Tell us what’s off. A link helps but isn’t required — “this is the wrong person” is a useful report on its own. Nothing here changes the page directly; it goes to our review queue and a human checks it.

Only used to tell you if we act on your report. We never sell or share it.

Copied