Burke, Edmund quotes

1729-1797 British Political Writer Statesman

It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere.
Burke, Edmund
Business

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.
Burke, Edmund
Drugs

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

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

It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
Burke, Edmund
Complaints and Complaining

Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.
Burke, Edmund
Doubt

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.
Burke, Edmund
Civil Rights

Custom reconciles us to everything.
Burke, Edmund
Custom

Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.
Burke, Edmund
Corruption

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.
Burke, Edmund
Elections

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

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.
Burke, Edmund
Finance

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

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

People will not look forward to posterity who will not look backward to their ancestors.
Burke, Edmund
History and Historians

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.
Burke, Edmund
Force

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

It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.
Burke, Edmund
Facts

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

Great men are the guideposts and landmarks in the state.
Burke, Edmund
Greatness

Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.
Burke, Edmund
Government

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.
Burke, Edmund
Flattery

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.
Burke, Edmund
Law and Lawyers

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.
Burke, Edmund
Manners

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.
Burke, Edmund
Malice

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

Bad laws are the worst form of tyranny.
Burke, Edmund
Law and Lawyers

To innovate is not to reform.
Burke, Edmund
Innovation

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.
Burke, Edmund
Law and Lawyers

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.
Burke, Edmund
Liberty

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

Laws, like houses, lean on one another.
Burke, Edmund
Law and Lawyers

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.
Burke, Edmund
Liberty

I know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power.
Burke, Edmund
Power

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
Power

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.
Burke, Edmund
Law and Lawyers

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.
Burke, Edmund
Inheritance

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
Opposition

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

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
Politicians and Politics

The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.
Burke, Edmund
Mobs

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
Politicians and Politics

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
Planning

A nation is not conquered which is perpetually to be conquered.
Burke, Edmund
Nations

Spain: A whale stranded upon the coast of Europe.
Burke, Edmund
Nations

You can never plan the future by the past.
Burke, Edmund
Planning

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.
Burke, Edmund
Superstition

Good order is the foundation of all great things.
Burke, Edmund
Order

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

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

Applaud us when we run, Console us when we fall, Cheer us when we recover.
Burke, Edmund
Praise

Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none.
Burke, Edmund
Tolerance

Our patience will achieve more than our force.
Burke, Edmund
Patience

There is a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
Burke, Edmund
Tolerance

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
People

They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.
Burke, Edmund
Obstinacy

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
Parliament

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

Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.
Burke, Edmund
Safety

Patience will achieve more than force.
Burke, Edmund
Patience

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
Shame

Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.
Burke, Edmund
Slavery

Tyrants seldom want pretexts.
Burke, Edmund
Tyranny

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

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

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
Society

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
Rules

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

What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.
Burke, Edmund
Unity

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

Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new compositions, any bungler can add to the old.
Burke, Edmund
Taxes and Taxation

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

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

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

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

Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.
Burke, Edmund
Fame

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.
Burke, Edmund
Army and Navy

We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.
Burke, Edmund
Applause

We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.
Burke, Edmund
Change

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

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

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

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.
Burke, Edmund
Courage

Frugality is founded on the principal that all riches have limits.
Burke, Edmund
Economy and Economics

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

Ambition can creep as well as soar.
Burke, Edmund
Ambition

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

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.
Burke, Edmund
America

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

The yielding of the weak is the concession to fear.
Burke, Edmund
Weakness

The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.
Burke, Edmund
Youth

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.
Burke, Edmund
Welfare

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

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

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