Edmund Burke

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

— Edmund Burke

Ambition can creep as well as soar.

— Edmund Burke

A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.

— Edmund Burke

Young man, there is America, which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners.

— Edmund Burke

We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.

— Edmund Burke

Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.

— Edmund Burke

In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will remain for some time mutinous and full of faction, until some popular general, who understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself. Armies will obey him on his personal account. There is no other way of securing military obedience in this state of things.

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves.

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.

— Edmund Burke

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. That of sophists, economists and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is gone forever.

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

Custom reconciles us to everything.

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations -- wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

Frugality is founded on the principal that all riches have limits.

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

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

The objects of a financier are, then, to secure an ample revenue; to impose it with judgment and equality; to employ it economically; and, when necessity obliges him to make use of credit, to secure its foundations in that instance, and for ever, by the clearness and candor of his proceedings, the exactness of his calculations, and the solidity of his funds.

— Edmund Burke

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.

— Edmund Burke

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.

— Edmund Burke

When ever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither is safe.

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

Great men are the guideposts and landmarks in the state.

— Edmund Burke

People will not look forward to posterity who will not look backward to their ancestors.

— Edmund Burke

In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars.

— Edmund Burke

To innovate is not to reform.

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

Bad laws are the worst form of tyranny.

— Edmund Burke

In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature.

— Edmund Burke

Laws, like houses, lean on one another.

— Edmund Burke

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.

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

— Edmund Burke

In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But the works of malice and injustice are quite in another style. They are finished with a bold, masterly hand; touched as they are with the spirit of those vehement passions that call forth all our energies, whenever we oppress and persecute.

— Edmund Burke

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 in.

— Edmund Burke

The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.

— Edmund Burke

A nation is not conquered which is perpetually to be conquered.

— Edmund Burke

Spain: A whale stranded upon the coast of Europe.

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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.

— Edmund Burke

Good order is the foundation of all great things.

— Edmund Burke

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.

— Edmund Burke

Our patience will achieve more than our force.

— Edmund Burke

Patience will achieve more than force.

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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.

— Edmund Burke

You can never plan the future by the past.

— Edmund Burke

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

— 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.

— Edmund Burke

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.

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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.

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference which is, at least, half infidelity.

— Edmund Burke

In the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows.

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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.

— Edmund Burke

Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.

— Edmund Burke

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.

— Edmund Burke

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

There is a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.

— Edmund Burke

Tyrants seldom want pretexts.

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.

— Edmund Burke

The yielding of the weak is the concession to fear.

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

And having looked to government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them. To avoid that evil, government will redouble the causes of it; and then it will become inveterate and incurable.

— Edmund Burke

The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.

— Edmund Burke

I did not obey your instructions. No. I conformed to the instructions of truth and Nature, and maintained your interest, against your opinions, with a constancy that became me. A representative worthy of you ought to be a person of stability. I am to look, indeed, to your opinions,but to such opinions as you and I must have five years hence. I was not to look to the flash of the day. I knew that you chose me, in my place, along with others, to be a pillar of the state, and not a weathercock on the top of the edifice, exalted for my levity and versatility, and of no use but to indicate the shiftings of every fashionable gale.

— Edmund Burke

In all forms of government the people is the true legislator.

— Edmund Burke

The distinguishing part of our Constitution is its liberty. To preserve that liberty inviolate seems the particular duty and proper trust of a member of the House of Commons. But the liberty, the only liberty, I mean is a liberty connected with order: that not only exists along with order and virtue, but which cannot exist at all without them. It inheres in good and steady government, as in its substance and vital principle.

— Edmund Burke

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites,in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity,in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption,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.

— Edmund Burke

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.

— Edmund Burke