Quotes by Burke, Edmund

"Spain: A whale stranded upon the coast of Europe."

Burke, Edmund on nations   

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

Burke, Edmund on obstinacy
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"He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict with difficulty helps us to an intimate acquaintance with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial."

Burke, Edmund on opposition
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"Good order is the foundation of all great things."

Burke, Edmund on order   

"Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament."

Burke, Edmund on parliament   

"Our patience will achieve more than our force."

Burke, Edmund on patience
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"Patience will achieve more than force."

Burke, Edmund on patience
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"To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely."

Burke, Edmund on patriotism
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"If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived."

Burke, Edmund on people   

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

Burke, Edmund on perseverance   

"I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business."

Burke, Edmund on planning   

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

Burke, Edmund on planning   

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

Burke, Edmund on politics   

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"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."

Burke, Edmund on politics   

"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."

Burke, Edmund on politics   

"Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together."

Burke, Edmund on politics   

"I know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power."

Burke, Edmund on power   

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"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."

Burke, Edmund on power   

"Applaud us when we run, Console us when we fall, Cheer us when we recover."

Burke, Edmund on praise
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"A populace never rebels from passion for attack, but from impatience of suffering."

Burke, Edmund on rebellion   

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

Burke, Edmund on relationship
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"Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference which is, at least, half infidelity."

Burke, Edmund on religion
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"In the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows."

Burke, Edmund on repression   

"Restraint and discipline and examples of virtue and justice. These are the things that form the education of the world."

Burke, Edmund on restraint   

"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."

Burke, Edmund on rules   

"Early and provident fear is the mother of safety."

Burke, Edmund on safety   

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

Burke, Edmund on scandal   

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"Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants."

Burke, Edmund on shame   

"Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil."

Burke, Edmund on slavery   

"Society is indeed a contract. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born."

Burke, Edmund on society   

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

Burke, Edmund on business   

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

Burke, Edmund on caution   

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

Burke, Edmund on change
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"A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation."

Burke, Edmund on change
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"Superstition is the religion of feeble minds."

Burke, Edmund on superstition   

"Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new compositions, any bungler can add to the old."

Burke, Edmund on taxes and taxation   

"To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men."

Burke, Edmund on taxes and taxation   

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

Burke, Edmund on tolerance
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"There is a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue."

Burke, Edmund on tolerance
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"Tyrants seldom want pretexts."

Burke, Edmund on tyranny   

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