Edmund Burke Quotes
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So far as it has gone, it probably is the most pure and defecated publick good which ever has been conferred on mankind.
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Applaud us when we run, console us when we fall, cheer us when we recover.
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They talk as if England were not in Europe.
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Young man, there is America - which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners; yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world.
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A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood.
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It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs.
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The cold neutrality of an impartial judge.
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I have in general no very exalted opinion of the virtue of paper government.
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Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures.
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Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.
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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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The wisdom of our ancestors.
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Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind.
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There never was a bad man that had ability for good service.
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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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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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A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way towards informing us of the nature of the thing defined.
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Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
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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.
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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.
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I take toleration to be a part of religion. I do not know which I would sacrifice; I would keep them both: it is not necessary that I should sacrifice either.
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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.
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I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard, than in the tombs of the Capulets.
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You had that action and counteraction which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers draws out the harmony of the universe.