Edmund burke quotes

They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.

The only infallible criterion of wisdom to vulgar minds - success.

All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust, and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society.

The great difference between the real leader and the pretender is that the one sees into the future, while the other regards only the present; the one lives by the day, and acts upon expediency; the other acts on enduring principles and for the immortality.

Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all.

There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.

The great inlet by which a colour for oppression has entered into the world is by one man's pretending to determine concerning the happiness of another.

Circumspection and caution are part of wisdom.

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.

Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray, to not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that, of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little, shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.

Art is a partnership not only between those who are living but between those who are dead and those who are yet to be born.

Dogs are indeed the most social, affectionate, and amiable animals of the whole brute creation.

Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.

Great men are never sufficiently shown but in struggles.

An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.

A great empire and little minds go ill together.

True religion is the foundation of society. When that is once shaken by contempt, the whole fabric cannot be stable nor lasting.

What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!

To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of public affections. It is the first link in the series by which we proceed toward a love to our country and to mankind. The interest of that portion of social arrangement is a trust in the hands of all those who compose it; and as none but bad men would justify it in abuse, none but traitors would barter it away for their own personal advantage.

The greatest crimes do not arise from a want of feeling for others but from an over-sensibilit y for ourselves and an over-indulgence to our own desires

Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.

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; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.

Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none.

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.

The credulity of dupes is as inexhaustible as the invention of knaves.

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.

Good order is the foundation of all things.

We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.

The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.

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

What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.

When you fear something, learn as much about it as you can. Knowledge conquers fear.

Facts are to the mind what food is to the body. On the due digestion of the former depend the strength and wisdom of the one, just as vigor and health depend on the other. The wisest in council, the ablest in debate, and the most agreeable companion in the commerce of human life, is that man who has assimilated to his understanding the greatest number of facts.

Politics ought to be adjusted not to human reasonings but to human nature, of which reason is but a part and by no means the greatest part.

People must be taken as they are, and we should never try make them or ourselves better by quarreling with them.

All the forces of darkness need to succeed ... is for the people to do nothing.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

The greatest sin is to do nothing because you can only do a little.

All men that are ruined, are ruined on the side of their natural propensities.

In on summer they have done their business... they have completely pulled down to the ground their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their revenue, their army, their navy, their commerce, their arts, and their manufactures... destroyed all balances and counterpoises which serve to fix a state and give it steady direction, and then they melted down the whole into one incongrous mass of mob and democracy... the people, along with their political servitude, have thrown off the yoke of law and morals.

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

You will smile here at the consistency of those democratists who, when they are not on their guard, treat the humbler part of the community with the greatest contempt, whilst, at the same time they pretend to make them the depositories of all power.

Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else; and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear which generates true courage.

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

The hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis.

Equity money is dynamic and debt money is static.

All men have equal rights, but not to equal things.

Evil prevails when good men fail to act.

He only deserves to be remembered by posterity who treasures up and preserves the history of his ancestors.

Manners are of more importance than laws. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe.

History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.

Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.

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

You can never plan the future by the past.

People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

This sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his nature.

Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.

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

All that needs to be done for evil to prevail is good men doing nothing.

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

The Fate of good men who refuse to become involved in politics is to be ruled by evil men.

History consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetite.

Wars are just to those to whom they are necessary.

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

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

That the greatest security of the people, against the encroachments and usurpations of their superiors, is to keep the Spirit of Liberty constantly awake, is an undeniable truth

Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant.

Turn over a new leaf.

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.

To speak of atrocious crime in mild language is treason to virtue.

In a democracy the majority of citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority...and that oppression of the majority will extend to far great number, and will be carried on with much greater fury, than can almost ever be apprehended from the dominion of a single sceptre. Under a cruel prince they have the plaudits of the people to animate their generous constancy under their sufferings; but those who are subjected to wrong under multitudes are deprived of all external consolation: they seem deserted by mankind, overpowered by a conspiracy of their whole species.

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

If we owned the property, we will be free and prosperous. If so they regain control, we will become poor

The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.

If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.

A coward's courage is in his tongue.

People crushed by law, have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much hope and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous.

The great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of the great.

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.

Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.

There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.

When a great man has some one object in view to be achieved in a given time, it may be absolutely necessary for him to walk out of all the common roads.

Men love to hear of their power, but have an extreme disrelish to be told their duty.

Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue.

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites…in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

The true way to mourn the dead is to take care of the living who belong to them.

A populace never rebels from passion for attack, but from impatience of suffering.

The essence of tyranny is the enforcement of stupid laws.

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

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

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.

General rebellions and revolts of a whole people never were encouraged now or at any time. They are always provoked.

In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind.

There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity - the law of nature and of nations.

Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief.

A nation without means of reform is without means of survival.

Those who attempt to level never equalize

It is the nature of tyranny and rapacity never to learn moderation from the ill-success of first oppressions; on the contrary, all oppressors, all men thinking highly of the methods dictated by their nature, attribute the frustration of their desires to the want of sufficient rigor.

All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing as they must if they believe they can do nothing. There is nothing worse because the council of despair is declaration of irresponsibility; it is Pilate washing his hands.

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

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

When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot possibly be estimated. From that moment, we have no compass to govern us, nor can we know distinctly to what port to steer.

He that struggles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

Education is a nation's cheapest defence

Education is the cheap defense of nations.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom but license to pursue whatever passions prevail in the intemperate mind; man's right to freedom being in exact proportion to his willingness to put chains upon his own appetites; the less restraint from within, the more must be imposed from without.

Those who have been intoxicated with power... can never willingly abandon it.

It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

Man is by his constitution a religious animal.

Our patience will achieve more than our force.

The grand instructor, time.

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

But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.

Silence is golden but when it threatens your freedom it's yellow.

There is nothing that God has judged good for us that He has not given us the means to accomplish, both in the natural and the moral world.

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.