Edmund Burke Quotes
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Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.
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They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.
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He that struggles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
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Frugality is founded on the principal that all riches have limits.
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Falsehood is a perennial spring.
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Custom reconciles us to everything.
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The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.
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I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.
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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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Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.
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When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
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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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By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.
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Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond, which originally made, and must still preserve the unity of the empire.
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The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.
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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.
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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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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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Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none.
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The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone!
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Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.
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The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
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People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.