Burke—When Politicians Deal in Blood

Jacques-Louis David, The Lictors Returning to Brutus the Bodies of his Sons (1789)

A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood, he would feel some apprehension at being called to a tremendous account for engaging in so deep a play, without any sort of knowledge of the game. It is no excuse for presumptuous ignorance, that it is directed by insolent passion. The poorest being that crawls on earth, contending to save itself from injustice and oppression, is an object respectable in the eyes of God and man. But I cannot conceive any existence under heaven (which, in the depths of its wisdom, tolerates all sorts of things), that is more truly odious and disgusting, than an impotent, helpless creature, without civil wisdom or military skill, without a consciousness of any other qualification for power but his servility to it, bloated with pride and arrogance, calling for battles which he is not to fight, contending for a violent dominion which he can never exercise, and satisfied to be himself mean and miserable, in order to render others contemptible and wretched.

—Edmund Burke, Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (Apr. 3, 1777), in Works of the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke, vol. 2, p. 206 (5th ed. 1877).