Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else; and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear which generates true courage.
Edmund BurkeIt is the function of a judge not to make but to declare the law, according to the golden mete-wand of the law and not by the crooked cord of discretion.
Edmund BurkeUnsociable humors are contracted in solitude, which will, in the end, not fail of corrupting the understanding as well as the manners, and of utterly disqualifying a man for the satisfactions and duties of life. Men must be taken as they are, and we neither make them or ourselves better by flying from or quarreling with them.
Edmund BurkeMen want to be reminded, who do not want to be taught; because those original ideas of rectitude to which the mind is compelled to assent when they are proposed, are not always as present to us as they ought to be.
Edmund BurkePrudence is a quality incompatible with vice, and can never be effectively enlisted in its cause.
Edmund BurkeThe Fate of good men who refuse to become involved in politics is to be ruled by evil men.
Edmund BurkeWhatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself; and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all it combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. In this partnership all men have equal rights; but not to equal things.
Edmund BurkeContempt is not a thing to be despised. It may be borne with a calm and equal mind, but no man, by lifting his head high, can pretend that he does not perceive the scorns that are poured down on him from above.
Edmund BurkeThe great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of the great.
Edmund BurkeHe that struggles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
Edmund BurkeRefined policy ever has been the parent of confusion, and ever will be so as long as the world endures. Plain good intention, which is as easily discovered at the first view as fraud is surely detected at last, is of no mean force in the government of mankind.
Edmund BurkeWhen slavery is established in any part of the world, those who are free are by far the most proud and jealous of their freedom.
Edmund BurkePrejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, skeptical, puzzled and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit; and not a series of unconnected acts. Through past prejudice, his duty becomes part of his nature.
Edmund BurkeThere is a courageous wisdom; there is also a false, reptile prudence, the result not of caution but of fear.
Edmund BurkeThey never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.
Edmund BurkeThe 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.
Edmund BurkeAnd having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.
Edmund BurkeIt is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals that their maxims have a plausible air; and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as copper coin; and about as valuable.
Edmund BurkeInstead of casting away all our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very considerable degree, and, to take more shame to ourselves, we cherish them because they are prejudices; and the longer they have lasted and the more generally they have prevailed, the more we cherish them. We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason; because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and of ages.
Edmund BurkeI do not hesitate to say that the road to eminence and power, from an obscure condition, ought not to be made too easy, nor a thing too much of course. If rare merit be the rarest of all things, it ought to pass through some sort of probation. The temple of honor ought to be seated on an eminence. If it be open through virtue, let it be remembered, too, that virtue is never tried but by some difficulty and some struggle.
Edmund BurkeIn on summer they have done their business... they have completely pulled down to the ground their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their revenue, their army, their navy, their commerce, their arts, and their manufactures... destroyed all balances and counterpoises which serve to fix a state and give it steady direction, and then they melted down the whole into one incongrous mass of mob and democracy... the people, along with their political servitude, have thrown off the yoke of law and morals.
Edmund BurkeI cannot stand forward, and give praise or blame to any thing which relates to human actions, and human concerns, on a simple view of the subject as it stands stripped of every relation, in all the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction. Circumstances (which with some gentlemen pass for nothing) give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour, and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.
Edmund BurkeIn history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind.
Edmund BurkeWhatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling... When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible; but at certain distances, and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are, delightful, as we every day experience.
Edmund BurkeAn entire life of solitude contradicts the purpose of our being, since death itself is scarcely an idea of more terror.
Edmund BurkeThere is nothing that God has judged good for us that He has not given us the means to accomplish, both in the natural and the moral world.
Edmund BurkeBut the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.
Edmund BurkeEngland and Ireland may flourish together. The world is large enough for both of us. Let it be our care not to make ourselves too little for it.
Edmund BurkeTo reach the height of our ambition is like trying to reach the rainbow; as we advance it recedes.
Edmund BurkeRestraint and discipline and examples of virtue and justice. These are the things that form the education of the world.
Edmund BurkeHypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.
Edmund BurkeThe perfection of conversation is not to play a regular sonata, but, like the AEolian harp, to await the inspiration of the passing breeze.
Edmund BurkeAll persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust, and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society.
Edmund BurkeExpense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy. If parsimony were to be considered as one of the kinds of that virtue, there is, however, another and a higher economy. Economy is a distinctive virtue, and consists not in saving, but in selection.
Edmund BurkeI dread our own power, and our own ambition; I dread our being too much dreaded... We may say that we shall not abuse this astonishing, and hitherto unheard-of-power. But every other nation will think we shall abuse it. It is impossible but that, sooner or later, this state of things must produce a combination against us which may end in our ruin.
Edmund Burke