Edmund Burke Quotes
-
To innovate is not to reform.
-
So to be patriots as not to forget we are gentlemen.
-
Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.
-
Illustrious predecessor.
-
The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.
-
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.
-
Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.
-
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.
-
All men that are ruined, are ruined on the side of their natural propensities.
-
There was an ancient Roman lawyer, of great fame in the history of Roman jurisprudence, whom they called Cui Bono, from his having first introduced into judicial proceedings the argument, 'What end or object could the party have had in the act with which he is accused.'
-
I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.
-
Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatever: But, as in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an œconomy of truth. It is a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks truth with measure that he may speak it the longer.
-
And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.
-
Resolved to die in the last dike of prevarication.
-
Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new impositions, any bungler can add to the old.
-
I decline the election. - It has ever been my rule through life, to observe a proportion between my efforts and my objects. I have never been remarkable for a bold, active, and sanguine pursuit of advantages that are personal to myself.
-
If any ask me what a free Government is, I answer, that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think so, - and that they, and not I, are the natural, lawful, and competent judges of this matter.
-
The individual is foolish; the multitude, for the moment is foolish, when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise, and, when time is given to it, as a species it always acts right.
-
In their nomination to office they will not appoint to the exercise of authority as to a pitiful job, but as to a holy function.
-
Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.
-
Old religious factions are volcanoes burnt out.
-
I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others.
-
Nothing less will content me, than whole America.
-
Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.