Edmund Burke Quotes
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To innovate is not to reform.
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Public life is a situation of power and energy; he trespasses against his duty who sleeps upon his watch, as well as he that goes over to the enemy.
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The traveller has reached the end of the journey!
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Illustrious predecessor.
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Men who undertake considerable things, even in a regular way, ought to give us ground to presume ability.
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He had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame; a passion which is the instinct of all great souls.
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Manners are of more importance than laws. The law can touch us here and there, now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation like that of the air we breathe in.
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In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature.
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Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security.
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Corrupt influence, which is itself the perennial spring of all prodigality, and of all disorder; which loads us, more than millions of debt; which takes away vigor from our arms, wisdom from our councils, and every shadow of authority and credit from the most venerable parts of our constitution.
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The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear.
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The men of England - the men, I mean of light and leading in England.
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The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.
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Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.
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A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.
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When Croft's 'Life of Dr. Young' was spoken of as a good imitation of Dr. Johnson's style, 'No, no,' said he, 'it is not a good imitation of Johnson; it has all his pomp without his force; it has all the nodosities of the oak, without its strength; it has all the contortions of the sibyl, without the inspiration.'
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It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere.
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There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
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All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
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Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures.
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Jacobinism is the revolt of the enterprising talents of a country against its property.
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It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.
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It is the love of the people; it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you both your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience, without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber.
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A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arises from words.