Edmund Burke Quotes
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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.
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But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.
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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.
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We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.
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There is a sort of enthusiasm in all projectors, absolutely necessary for their affairs, which makes them proof against the most fatiguing delays, the most mortifying disappointments, the most shocking insults; and, what is severer than all, the presumptuous judgement of the ignorant upon their designs.
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They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.
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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.
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Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.
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Falsehood is a perennial spring.
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The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.
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Frugality is founded on the principal that all riches have limits.
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Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives preaching of a new gospel.
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Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.
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Custom reconciles us to everything.
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The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
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All protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principles of resistance: it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion.
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Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.
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All those instances to be found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which affrighted Nature recoils, are their chosen and almost sole examples for the instruction of their youth.
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No man can mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity.
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The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.
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Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.
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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.
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He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
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All 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.