Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Shame prevents total loss of virtue, even in tyrants.
In plain terms
Shame keeps some virtue alive in bad rulers.
What can you take from it?
Shame protects against complete moral collapse.

Where it applies

  • autocracies
  • ethical decline
  • personal reform

Putting it to work

  • cultivate shame
  • check abuses

Questions to consider

  • Can shame change behavior?
  • Is shame necessary?

Another view

Shame alone may not stop tyranny.

More from Edmund Burke

  1. Where popular authority is absolute and unrestrained, the people have an infinitely greater, because a far better founded, confidence in their own power. They …

    Permalink to quote #142
  2. Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind.

    Permalink to quote #144
  3. Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.

    Permalink to quote #141

Related quotes

  1. Be plain in dress, and sober in your diet; In short, my deary, kiss me, and be quiet.

    Lady Mary Wortley MontaguLady Mary Wortley Montagu quote #3
  2. Blushing is the colour of virtue.

    Matthew HenryMatthew Henry quote #5
  3. It is the mark of a mean, vulgar and ignoble spirit to dwell on the thought of food before meal times or worse to dwell on it afterwards, to discuss it and wal…

    Francis de SalesFrancis de Sales quote #5