Edmund Burke's Quotes

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.

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

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

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

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

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

Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.

Good order is the foundation of all things.

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.

To innovate is not to reform.

Ambition can creep as well as soar.

Custom reconciles us to everything.

Falsehood is a perennial spring.

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.

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

Laws, like houses, lean on one another.

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

Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

The march of the human mind is slow.

The traveller has reached the end of the journey!

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

Tyrants seldom want pretexts.

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

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

A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

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.

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.

Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

You can never plan the future by the past.

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

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

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

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

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.

Our patience will achieve more than our force.

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.

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

Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.

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

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.

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

Beauty is the promise of happiness.

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

Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.

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

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.