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About this quote

What does it mean?
Rule by a crowd can be just as oppressive as rule by a single tyrant.
In plain terms
When many people rule tyrannically, it is still tyranny.
What can you take from it?
Majority rule can become oppressive if unchecked.

Where it applies

  • democratic systems
  • mob justice
  • public policy

Putting it to work

  • minority rights protection
  • constitutional checks
  • civic education

Questions to consider

  • How does mob rule happen?
  • What limits majority power?

Another view

Crowd rule often protects rights better than single rulers.

More from Edmund Burke

  1. I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard, than in the tombs of the Capulets.

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  2. Turn over a new leaf.

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  3. Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but selection. Parsimony requires no providence, no sagacity, no powers of combination, no compari…

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