Edmund Burke Quotes

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

There is America, which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners, yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world.

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

The ocean is an object of no small terror.

Evil prevails when good men fail to act.

Whenever government abandons law, it proclaims anarchy.

The same sun which gilds all nature, and exhilarates the whole creation, does not shine upon disappointed ambition.

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

Continue to instruct the world; and - whilst we carry on a poor unequal conflict with the passions and prejudices of our day, perhaps with no better weapons than other passions and prejudices of our own - convey wisdom to future generations.

Man is an animal that cooks his victuals.

Religion, to have any force upon men's understandings,--indeed, to exist at all,--must be supposed paramount to law, and independent for its substance upon any human institution, else it would be the absurdest thing in the world,--an acknowledged cheat.

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

The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone!

We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us.

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.

Never, no never, did Nature say one thing, and wisdom another.

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.

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.

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

Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.

Evil succeeds when good men do nothing

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

We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.

Government is the exercise of all the great qualities of the human mind.

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

Man is by his constitution a religious animal.

Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.

Where two motives, neither of them perfectly justifiable, may be assigned, the worst has the chance of being preferred.

Vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.

Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit, and a series of unconnected arts. Though just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature.

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

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

It is better to cherish virtue and humanity, by leaving much to free will, even with some loss of the object , than to attempt to make men mere machines and instruments of political benevolence. The world on the whole will gain by a liberty, without which virtue cannot exist.

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

It is the nature of tyranny and rapacity never to learn moderation from the ill-success of first oppressions; on the contrary, all oppressors, all men thinking highly of the methods dictated by their nature, attribute the frustration of their desires to the want of sufficient rigor.

The whole compass of the language is tried to find sinonimies [synonyms] and circumlocutions for massacres and murder. Things never called by their common names. Massacre is sometimes called agitation, sometimes effervescence, sometimes excess sometimes too continued an exercise of revolutionary power.

Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young peoples, and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation.

I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong. They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries and in this. But I do say that in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people.

What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!

If we owned the property, we will be free and prosperous. If so they regain control, we will become poor

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.

Facts are to the mind what food is to the body.

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

The superfluities of a rich nation furnish a better object of trade than the necessities of a poor one. It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere.

He only deserves to be remembered by posterity who treasures up and preserves the history of his ancestors.

Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.

Education is a nation's cheapest defence

Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.