Edmund Burke Quotes

A speculative despair is unpardonable where it our duty to act.

Men are as much blinded by the extremes of misery as by the extremes of prosperity.

Flattery is no more than what raises in a man's mind an idea of a preference which he has not.

I own that there is a haughtiness and fierceness in human nature which will cause innumerable broils, place men in what situation you please.

He who calls in the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own; and he who profits by a superior understanding raises his powers to a level with the height of the superior standing he unites with.

The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself.

Guilt was never a rational thing; it distorts all the faculties of the human mind, it perverts them, it leaves a man no longer in the free use of his reason, it puts him into confusion.

Oppression makes wise men mad; but the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which is better than the sobriety of fools.

Poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general as well as a more powerful dominion over the passions than the art of painting.

The parties are the gamesters; but government keeps the table, and is sure to be the winner in the end.

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

My vigour relents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.

It is by imitation, far more than by precept, that we learn everything; and what we learn thus, we acquire not only more effectually, but more pleasantly.

Somebody has said, that a king may make a nobleman but he cannot make a gentleman.

A nation without means of reform is without means of survival.

An entire life of solitude contradicts the purpose of our being, since death itself is scarcely an idea of more terror.

He was not merely a chip off the old block, but the old block itself.

Not men but measures a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honorable engagement.

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

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

If the prudence of reserve and decorum dictates silence in some circumstances, in others prudence of a higher order may justify us in speaking our thoughts.

Nothing is so rash as fear; and the counsels of pusillanimity very rarely put off, whilst they are always sure to aggravate, the evils from which they would fly.

Nnothing tends more to the corruption of science than to suffer it to stagnate. These waters must be troubled, before they can exert their virtues.

It may be observed, that very polished languages, and such as are praised for their superior clearness and perspicuity, are generally deficient in strength.

All government is founded on compromise and banter.

The men of England,- the men, I mean, of light and leading in England.

Turbulent, discontented men of quality, in proportion as they are puffed up with personal pride and arrogance, generally despise their own order.

It is by bribing, not so often by being bribed, that wicked politicians bring ruin on mankind. Avarice is a rival to the pursuits of many.

Teach me, O lark! with thee to greatly rise, to exalt my soul and lift it to the skies.

An extreme rigor is sure to arm everything against it.

To speak of atrocious crime in mild language is treason to virtue.

I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche, upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases.

Surely the church is a place where one day's truce ought to be allowed to the dissensions and animosities of mankind.

The public interest requires doing today those things that men of intelligence and good will would wish, five or ten years hence, had been done.

The more accurately we search into the human mind, the stronger traces we everywhere find of his wisdom who made it.

I consider how little man is, yet, in his own mind, how great. He is lord and master of all things, yet scarce can command anything.

The marketplace obliges men, whether they will or not, in pursuing their own selfish interests, to connect the general good with their own individual success.

As mankind becomes more enlightened to know their real interests, they will esteem the value of agriculture; they will find it in their natural--their destined occupation.

All virtue which is impracticable is spurious.

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.

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.

To execute laws is a royal office; to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust.

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

A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood.

Custom reconciles us to everything.

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

Man is by his constitution a religious animal.

We begin our public affection in our families. No cold relation is a zealous citizen.

They [Americans] augur misgovernment at a distance and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.

Thank God, men that art greatly guilty are never wise.