Edmund Burke Quotes
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There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.
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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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There is nothing that God has judged good for us that He has not given us the means to accomplish, both in the natural and the moral world.
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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 any thing but power for their relief.
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The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.
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An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.
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All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
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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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It shews the anxiety of the great men who influenced the conduct of affairs at that great event, to make the Revolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery of future revolutions.
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Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.
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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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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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It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
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They made and recorded a sort of institute and digest of anarchy, called the Rights of Man.
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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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So to be patriots as not to forget we are gentlemen.
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There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
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Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.
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There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity - the law of nature and of nations.
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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.'