Edmund Burke

Quotes

A man who works beyond the surface of things,though he may be wrong himself, yet he clears the way for others and may make even his errors subservient to the cause of truth.
A man who works beyond the surface of things, though he may be wrong himself, yet he clears the way for others and may make even his errors subservient to the cause of truth.
He who wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.
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.
Contempt is not a thing to be despised.
An event had happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.
Our patience will achieve more than our force.
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
Better be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident security.
Never despair; but if you do, work on in despair.
Good order is the foundation of all things.
All government -- indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act -- is founded on compromise and barter.
Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises; for never intending to go beyond promises; it costs nothing.
It is by imitation, far more than by precept, that we learn everything; and what we learn thus, we acquire not only more efficiently, but more pleasantly. This forms our manners, our opinions, our lives.
Fraud is the ready minister of injustice.
Men have no right to put the well-being of the present generation wholly out of the question. Perhaps the only moral trust with any certainty in our hands is the care of our own time.
Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.
Bad law is the worst sort of tyranny.
The wise determine from the gravity of the case; the irritable, from sensibility to oppression; the high minded, from disdain and indignation at abusive power in unworthy hands.
I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone.
There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.
Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.
All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.
An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.
Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.
He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.
It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.
No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.
Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.
Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.
Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none.
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
You can never plan the future by the past.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.