Top 498 Quotes & Sayings by Edmund Burke - Page 2

He had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame; a passion which is the instinct of all great souls.

The most important of all revolutions, a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions.

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.

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.

All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice.

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

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

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

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.

The traveller has reached the end of the journey!

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

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

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.

The person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon him; he indulges it, he loves it; but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time.

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

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.

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

He that struggles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.

Falsehood is a perennial spring.

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

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

The march of the human mind is slow.

Laws, like houses, lean on one another.

Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.

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

Free trade is not based on utility but on justice.

I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.

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

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

Custom reconciles us to everything.

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

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

The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.

To innovate is not to reform.

Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives preaching of a new gospel.

All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing as they must if they believe they can do nothing. There is nothing worse because the council of despair is declaration of irresponsibility; it is Pilate washing his hands.

Turn over a new leaf.

The greatest sin is to do nothing because you can only do a little.

The essence of tyranny is the enforcement of stupid laws.

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

Circumspection and caution are part of wisdom.

This sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his nature.

A coward's courage is in his tongue.

Silence is golden but when it threatens your freedom it's yellow.

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites…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.

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.

The hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis.

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.

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

There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.

Evil prevails when good men fail to act.

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

The Fate of good men who refuse to become involved in politics is to be ruled by evil men.

When you fear something, learn as much about it as you can. Knowledge conquers fear.

Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom but license to pursue whatever passions prevail in the intemperate mind; man's right to freedom being in exact proportion to his willingness to put chains upon his own appetites; the less restraint from within, the more must be imposed from without.

Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.

All men have equal rights, but not to equal things.

The great difference between the real leader and the pretender is that the one sees into the future, while the other regards only the present; the one lives by the day, and acts upon expediency; the other acts on enduring principles and for the immortality.