Edmund Burke Quotes
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He was not merely a chip of the old Block, but the old Block itself.
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To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
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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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Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.
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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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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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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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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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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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It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere.
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The men of England - the men, I mean of light and leading in England.
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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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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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Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures.
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A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood.
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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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It is the function of a judge not to make but to declare the law, according to the golden mete-wand of the law and not by the crooked cord of discretion.
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A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arises from words.
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The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear.
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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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Jacobinism is the revolt of the enterprising talents of a country against its property.
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Boldness formerly was not the character of Atheists as such. ... But of late they are grown active, designing, turbulent, and seditious.
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There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.