Edmund Burke Quotes

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist... view

By: Edmund Burke

Custom reconciles us to everything... view

By: Edmund Burke

Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind... view

By: Edmund Burke

By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation... view

By: Edmund Burke

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils.. view

By: Edmund Burke

But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded.. view

By: Edmund Burke

Beauty is the promise of happiness... view

By: Edmund Burke

Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty... view

By: Edmund Burke

A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors... view

By: Edmund Burke

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones... view

By: Edmund Burke

Ambition can creep as well as soar... view

By: Edmund Burke

All that's necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing... view

By: Edmund Burke

A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman... view

By: Edmund Burke

All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory.. view

By: Edmund Burke

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter... view

By: Edmund Burke

A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation... view

By: Edmund Burke

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny... view

By: Edmund Burke

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed... view

By: Edmund Burke

Laws, like houses, lean on one another... view

By: Edmund Burke

Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society.. view

By: Edmund Burke

It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact... view

By: Edmund Burke

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom.. view

By: Edmund Burke

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do.. view

By: Edmund Burke

Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own... view

By: Edmund Burke

It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare... view

By: Edmund Burke

It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere... view

By: Edmund Burke

Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy... view

By: Edmund Burke

Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair... view

By: Edmund Burke

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear... view

By: Edmund Burke

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe... view

By: Edmund Burke

Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart.. view

By: Edmund Burke

You can never plan the future by the past... view

By: Edmund Burke

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment.. view

By: Edmund Burke

It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs... view

By: Edmund Burke

In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination.. view

By: Edmund Burke

When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators.. view

By: Edmund Burke

Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other... view

By: Edmund Burke

Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle... view

By: Edmund Burke

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority... view

By: Edmund Burke

Education is the cheap defense of nations... view

By: Edmund Burke

Facts are to the mind what food is to the body... view

By: Edmund Burke

Falsehood is a perennial spring... view

By: Edmund Burke