Edmund Burke Quotes

I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that the delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it.

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

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants.

Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.

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

War never leaves where it found a nation.

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

A representative owes not just his industry but his judgement

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

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

I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard than in the tombs of the Capulets.

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

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

The nature of things is, I admit, a sturdy adversary.

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

Ambition can creep as well as soar.

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

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

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

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