Edmund Burke Quotes
-
Applaud us when we run, console us when we fall, cheer us when we recover.
-
The wise will determine from the gravity of the case; the irritable from sensibility to oppression; the high-minded from disdain and indignation at abusive power in unworthy hands.
-
A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way towards informing us of the nature of the thing defined.
-
Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.
-
I have in general no very exalted opinion of the virtue of paper government.
-
I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others.
-
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.
-
So far as it has gone, it probably is the most pure and defecated publick good which ever has been conferred on mankind.
-
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.
-
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.
-
I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche, upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases.
-
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.
-
We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.
-
Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.
-
By adverting to the dignity of this high calling our ancestors have turned a savage wilderness into a glorious empire: and have made the most extensive, and the only honorable conquests, not by destroying, but by promoting the wealth, the number, the happiness of the human race.
-
Old religious factions are volcanoes burnt out.
-
There never was a bad man that had ability for good service.
-
Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.
-
Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new impositions, any bungler can add to the old.
-
It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs.
-
It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.
-
The wisdom of our ancestors.
-
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
-
Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom.