This one is real. Burke wrote it in Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, the pamphlet he published on 23 April 1770 — the sentence appears on page 106 of the 1770 London printing for J. Dodsley, and again in his collected Works. It is not the same line as “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing,” which Burke never wrote.
“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle” Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (London: printed for J. Dodsley, 1770), p. 106; wording as set in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, vol. 1 (London: John C. Nimmo, 1887): "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." Genuine Burke — unlike "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing," which he never wrote. Verified via Quotle.info.
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 writer, philosopher & politician. Theme: "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle". 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 "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle". 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 pamphlet it comes from
Work
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents
First published
23 April 1770 — London, printed for J. Dodsley, Pall Mall
Located at
Page 106 of the 1770 Dodsley printing (second edition); also in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I (Nimmo, 1887)
Author
Edmund Burke (1729–1797)
No man, who is not inflamed by vainglory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavors are of power to defeat the subtle designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770)
Punctuation drifts between printings: the collected Works text sets off the phrase with commas — “they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice” — while the version that circulates online, and the one Wikiquote prints ↗, drops them. The words themselves are identical.
The scanned 1770 pamphlet — title page: “THE SECOND EDITION · LONDON, Printed for J. DODSLEY, in Pall-Mall · MDCCLXX” — carries the sentence on page 106 ↗, immediately after Burke’s argument that scattered, unconnected men cannot resist “united Cabals of ambitious citizens.”
The same passage appears in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I (London: John C. Nimmo, 1887), digitised by Project Gutenberg ↗, where the pamphlet begins at page 433.
Wikiquote ↗ lists the line in its sourced section under Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770), citing Volume i, p. 526 — and puts “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” in a separate Misattributed section.
Quote Investigator ↗ quotes this Burke sentence from a 1770 Dodsley printing while concluding that the famous shorter saying cannot be found in Burke at all.
✓Public domain
The pamphlet was first published in London in 1770 and the collected Works edition used here was printed in 1887 — both are far past any US copyright term, so the text is in the public domain and free to quote in full.
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
The line people mean to quote — and the one Burke actually wrote
This sentence is genuine Burke. The trouble is that it is almost always dragged into an argument about a different sentence: the pithy “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing,” which is the single most-quoted thing pinned on Burke and appears nowhere in his writings.
✕
The famous one-linerEdmund Burke Not his words
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing” sits in Wikiquote’s Misattributed section ↗, which notes that “an extraordinary number of variants of it exist, but all without any definite original source,” and lists dozens of circulating wordings.
~
An earlier, related ideaJohn Stuart Mill 1 Feb 1867
In his inaugural address to the University of St Andrews, Mill wrote: “Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing” — on the page in the 1867 Longmans printing ↗. Quote Investigator ↗ says this expresses part of the idea, but that of Burke and Mill alike “neither expression is close textually.”
~
The earliest closely similar wordingRev. Charles F. Aked 31 Oct 1916
Quote Investigator ↗ calls a report of an Aked speech in the San Jose Mercury Herald of 31 October 1916 — “for evil men to accomplish their purpose it is only necessary that good men should do nothing” — the earliest known citation showing a strong similarity to the modern quote. Aked prefaced it with “it has been said,” so the saying was probably already circulating.
~
Earliest example of the credit to BurkeSir R. Murray Hyslop 5 July 1920
Quote Investigator ↗ reports that the earliest example it found of the saying being attributed to Burke is an address Hyslop delivered on 5 July 1920 — a century and a half after Burke’s pamphlet.
✓
Wording of the real lineEdmund Burke Genuine, punctuation varies
Some printings read “they will fall, one by one,” with commas — that is how the collected Works ↗ sets it — while the commonly shared form drops them. No words are added or changed.
✓Burke really did write “When bad men combine, the good must associate” — you can read it on page 106 of the 1770 pamphlet ↗. He did not write the snappier “triumph of evil” version that gets quoted in its place.
Context
Why Burke wrote it
Burke published the pamphlet in April 1770 as a defence of organised political party at a moment when “party” was a dirty word. His target was what Wikipedia describes ↗ as the “king’s friends” and their “Double Cabinet” — a court faction he believed was working around the Commons to serve George III.
The sentence is the hinge of that argument. Burke had just insisted that a man acting alone, however virtuous, cannot defeat “the subtle designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens.” Honest men must therefore organise — which is exactly what a political party is for.
No man … can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavors are of power to defeat the subtle designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens.
Read the full story
The pamphlet also contains Burke’s definition of party, which Wikipedia quotes ↗ alongside this very sentence: bodies “of men united for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed.”
It is easy to see how a reader in a hurry could compress Burke’s point into “good men doing nothing lets evil win.” That compression is a fair summary of the idea — it is just not a quotation, and Burke is not the one who wrote it.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
Edmund Burke was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher and politician, born 12 January 1729 and died 9 July 1797, widely credited as the founder of the cultural and political philosophy of conservatism. He entered the Commons in 1765, the year he became private secretary to the Marquess of Rockingham, and spent his parliamentary career in the Rockinghamite Whig faction. Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770), where this line appears, was his major statement on constitutional limits to executive power — and a defence of party as an honourable thing.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Primary source
Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, 2nd ed. (London: Printed for J. Dodsley, 1770), 106. Also in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, vol. 1 (London: John C. Nimmo, 1887).
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle’?” Last verified 4 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/when-bad-men-combine-the-good-must-associate-else-they-will/