Poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general as well as a more powerful dominion over the passions than the art of painting.
Edmund BurkeOur manners, our civilization, and all the good things connected with manners and civilization, have, in this European world of ours, depended for ages upon two principles: I mean the spirit of a gentleman, and the spirit of religion.
Edmund BurkeThere ought to be system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
Edmund BurkeGuilt 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.
Edmund BurkeThere is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.
Edmund BurkeThough ugliness be the opposite of beauty, it is not the opposite to proportion and fitness; for it is possible that a thing may be very ugly with any proportions, and with a perfect fitness for any use.
Edmund BurkeMan acts from adequate motives relative to his interest, and not on metaphysical speculations.
Edmund BurkeTrue humility-the basis of the Christian system-is the low but deep and firm foundation of all virtues.
Edmund BurkeThat the greatest security of the people, against the encroachments and usurpations of their superiors, is to keep the Spirit of Liberty constantly awake, is an undeniable truth
Edmund BurkeMere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.
Edmund BurkeThis sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his nature.
Edmund BurkeThe most favourable laws can do very little towards the happiness of people when the disposition of the ruling power is adverse to them.
Edmund BurkeWhen a great man has some one object in view to be achieved in a given time, it may be absolutely necessary for him to walk out of all the common roads.
Edmund BurkeMy good friends, while I do most earnestly recommend you to take care of your health and safety, as things most precious to us, I would not have that care degenerate into an effeminate and over-curious attention, which is always disgraceful to a man's self, and often troublesome to others.
Edmund BurkeThe hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis.
Edmund BurkeCircumstances 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.
Edmund BurkeYou will smile here at the consistency of those democratists who, when they are not on their guard, treat the humbler part of the community with the greatest contempt, whilst, at the same time they pretend to make them the depositories of all power.
Edmund BurkeThe only kind of sublimity which a painter or sculptor should aim at is to express by certain proportions and positions of limbs and features that strength and dignity of mind, and vigor and activity of body, which enables men to conceive and execute great actions.
Edmund BurkePolitics ought to be adjusted not to human reasonings but to human nature, of which reason is but a part and by no means the greatest part.
Edmund BurkeTaste and elegance, though they are reckoned only among the smaller and secondary morals, yet are of no mean importance in the regulations of life. A moral taste is not of force to turn vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue with something like the blandishments of pleasure, and it infinitely abates the evils of vice.
Edmund BurkeYour representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
Edmund BurkeIn the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will remain for some time mutinous and full of faction, until some popular general, who understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself. Armies will obey him on his personal account. There is no other way of securing military obedience in this state of things.
Edmund BurkeReflect how you are to govern a people who think they ought to be free, and think they are not. Your scheme yields no revenue; it yields nothing but discontent, disorder, disobedience; and such is the state of America, that after wading through up to your eyes in blood, you could only end up where you begun; that is, to tax where no revenue is to be found... all is confusion beyond it.
Edmund BurkeNothing ought to be more weighed than the nature of books recommended by public authority. So recommended, they soon form the character of the age.
Edmund BurkeEvils we have had continually calling for reformation, and reformations more grievous than any evils.
Edmund BurkeThe very name of a politician, a statesman, is sure to cause terror and hatred; it has always connected with it the ideas of treachery, cruelty, fraud, and tyranny.
Edmund BurkeTeach me, O lark! with thee to greatly rise, to exalt my soul and lift it to the skies.
Edmund BurkeI 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.
Edmund BurkeFlattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.
Edmund BurkeIt looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.
Edmund BurkeNothing, indeed, but the possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man.
Edmund BurkeHe that borrows the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own; he that uses that of a superior elevates his own to the stature of that he contemplates.
Edmund Burke