Top 100 Quotes About Edmund Burke
#1. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. (Edmund Burke)
Zack Love
#2. A strong nation is one that is loved by its people and, as Edmund Burke put it, for a country to be loved it ought to be lovely.
Ronald Reagan
#3. The real social contract, (Edmund Burke) argued, was not Rousseau's social contract between the noble savage and the General Will, but a "partnership" between the present generation and future generations.
Niall Ferguson
#4. Edmund Burke provided the answer in 1795: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Dean Koontz
#5. Malcolm X and Edmund Burke shared an appreciation of this important insight, this painful truth
that the state wants men to be weak and timid, not strong and proud.
Thomas Szasz
#6. British Statesman, parliamentary orator and political thinker, Edmund Burke once said, "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it." This is true to say the least.
Robert Paulson
#7. Edmund Burke once described society as a partnership between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn. It is difficult to see in the evolving system who will speak for the yet unborn, for the future.
Fareed Zakaria
#8. The utility of perseverance in absurdity is more than I could ever discern. Edmund Burke
Barbara W. Tuchman
#9. The die-hard opinions of George III couched in the language of Edmund Burke.
Stanley Baldwin
#10. Initially, 2,000 copies were printed. Today this seems a modest figure, but the market was not huge: as late as the 1790s Edmund Burke estimated the reading public at below 100,000.
Henry Hitchings
#11. Vernon Bogdanor's account The Monarchy and the Constitution is written as much in the shadow of Edmund Burke as it is of Walter Bagehot. He stresses the organic development of the British constitution, prefers evolution to revolution, and thinks stability is better than strife.
David Cannadine
#12. It is not that good people go to paradise - wherever good people are, it becomes paradise. And wherever stupid people and idiots are - they may be great believers in God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Bible, it does not matter - even paradise becomes a ruin. It becomes a hell." - Edmund Burke
Osho
#13. Edmund Burke in his critique of the French Revolution. Any society, he wrote in Reflections on the Revolution in France, which destroys the fabric of its state, must soon be "disconnected into the dust and powder of individuality".
Tony Judt
#14. Davy's work in Bristol came under attack by conservative politicians, including the famous Irish MP Edmund Burke, who accused the gas experiments of promoting not only atheism but the French Revolution.
Mark Kurlansky
#15. Ll that is necessary for evil to triumph
is for good men to do nothing. I supposed old Edmund Burke had meant to include women in that. And if he hadn't, well, screw him.
Rachel Caine
#16. All men have equal rights, but not to equal things.
Edmund Burke
#17. Delusion and weakness produce not one mischief the less, because they are universal.
Edmund Burke
#18. Old religious factions are volcanoes burned out; on the lava and ashes and squalid scoriae of old eruptions grow the peaceful olive, the cheering vine and the sustaining corn.
Edmund Burke
#21. Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.
Edmund Burke
#22. In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind.
Edmund Burke
#23. It is undoubtedly the business of ministers very much to consult the inclinations of the people, but they ought to take great care that they do not receive that inclination from the few persons who may happen to approach them.
Edmund Burke
#24. There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.
Edmund Burke
#25. Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength.
Edmund Burke
#26. There are some men formed with feelings so blunt that they can hardly be said to be awake during the whole course of their lives.
Edmund Burke
#27. The marketplace obliges men, whether they will or not, in pursuing their own selfish interests, to connect the general good with their own individual success.
Edmund Burke
#28. To execute laws is a royal office; to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust.
Edmund Burke
#29. I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pain of others
Edmund Burke
#30. Power gradually extirpates for the mind every humane and gentle virtue.
Edmund Burke
#31. Adversity is a severe instructor, set over us by one who knows us better than we do ourselves.
Edmund Burke
#32. By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.
Edmund Burke
#33. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us [...], because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate; that which in the first instance is prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter operation, and its excellence may arise even from the ill effects it produces in the beginning.
Edmund Burke
#34. The parties are the gamesters; but government keeps the table, and is sure to be the winner in the end.
Edmund Burke
#35. In the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows.
Edmund Burke
#36. Wars are just to those to whom they are necessary.
Edmund Burke
#37. The worthy gentleman who has been snatched from us at the moment of the election, and in the middle of the contest, whilst his desires were as warm and his hopes as eager as ours, has feelingly told us what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue.
Edmund Burke
#38. By looking into physical causes our minds are opened and enlarged; and in this pursuit, whether we take or whether we lose the game, the chase is certainly of service.
Edmund Burke
#39. 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.
Edmund Burke
#40. Art is a partnership not only between those who are living but between those who are dead and those who are yet to be born.
Edmund Burke
#41. 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.
Edmund Burke
#42. The ocean is an object of no small terror.
Edmund Burke
#43. The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.
Edmund Burke
#44. There is a sort of gloss upon ingenious falsehoods that dazzles the imagination, but which neither belongs to, nor becomes the sober aspect of truth.
Edmund Burke
#45. Some degree of novelty must be one of the materials in almost every instrument which works upon the mind; and curiosity blends itself, more or less, with all our pleasures.
Edmund Burke
#46. The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
Edmund Burke
#47. An appearance of delicacy, and even fragility, is almost essential to beauty.
Edmund Burke
#48. Applaud us when we run, Console us when we fall, Cheer us when we recover.
Edmund Burke
#49. Of all things, wisdom is the most terrified with epidemical fanaticism, because, of all enemies, it is that against which she is the least able to furnish any kind of resource.
Edmund Burke
#50. To be struck with His power, it is only necessary to open our eyes.
Edmund Burke
#51. A thing may look specious in theory, and yet be ruinous in practice; a thing may look evil in theory, and yet be in practice excellent.
Edmund Burke
#52. Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.
Edmund Burke
#53. Water is insipid, inodorous, colorless and smooth.
Edmund Burke
#54. Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.
Edmund Burke
#55. I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard than in the tomb of the Capulets.
Edmund Burke
#56. Some decent regulated pre-eminence, some preference (not exclusive appropriation) given to birth, is neither unnatural, nor unjust, nor impolite.
Edmund Burke
#57. We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.
Edmund Burke
#58. Though ugliness be the opposite of beauty, it is not the opposite to proportion and fitness; for it is possible that a thing may be very ugly with any proportions, and with a perfect fitness for any use.
Edmund Burke
#60. Manners are of more importance than laws. 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.
Edmund Burke
#61. Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.
Edmund Burke
#62. Terror is a passion which always produces delight when it does not press too close.
Edmund Burke
#63. A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.
Edmund Burke
#64. I own that there is a haughtiness and fierceness in human nature which will cause innumerable broils, place men in what situation you please.
Edmund Burke
#65. Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young peoples, and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation.
Edmund Burke
#66. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
Edmund Burke
#67. As to great and commanding talents, they are the gift of Providence in some way unknown to us, they rise where they are least expected; they fail when everything seems disposed to produce them, or at least to call them forth.
Edmund Burke
#68. The most favourable laws can do very little towards the happiness of people when the disposition of the ruling power is adverse to them.
Edmund Burke
#69. When any work seems to have required immense force and labor to effect it, the idea is grand.
Edmund Burke
#70. England and Ireland may flourish together. The world is large enough for both of us. Let it be our care not to make ourselves too little for it.
Edmund Burke
#71. We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us
Edmund Burke
#72. Whilst every principle of authority and resistance has been pushed, upon both sides, as far as it would go, there is nothing so solid and certain, either in reasoning or in practice, that has not been shaken.
Edmund Burke
#73. True humility-the basis of the Christian system-is the low but deep and firm foundation of all virtues.
Edmund Burke
#74. Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
Edmund Burke
#75. No men can act with effect who do not act in concert; no men can act in concert who do not act with confidence; no men can act with confidence who are not bound together with common opinions, common affections, and common interests.
Edmund Burke
#76. Society is indeed a contract ... it becomes a participant not only between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.
Edmund Burke
#77. A speculative despair is unpardonable where it our duty to act.
Edmund Burke
#78. Sallust is indisputably one of the best historians among the Romans, both for the purity of his language and the elegance of his style.
Edmund Burke
#80. The most important of all revolutions, a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions.
Edmund Burke
#81. Men who undertake considerable things, even in a regular way, ought to give us ground to presume ability.
Edmund Burke
#82. Over-taxation cost England her colonies of North America.
Edmund Burke
#83. I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.
Edmund Burke
#84. A populace never rebels from passion for attack, but from impatience of suffering.
Edmund Burke
#85. Men want to be reminded, who do not want to be taught; because those original ideas of rectitude to which the mind is compelled to assent when they are proposed, are not always as present to us as they ought to be.
Edmund Burke
#86. Teach me, O lark! with thee to greatly rise, to exalt my soul and lift it to the skies.
Edmund Burke
#87. It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere.
Edmund Burke
#88. It is in the relaxation of security; it is in the expansion of prosperity; it is in the hour of dilatation of the heart, and of its softening into festivity and pleasure, that the real character of men is discerned.
Edmund Burke
#89. All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust, and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society.
Edmund Burke
#90. A government of five hundred country attornies and obscure curates is not good for twenty-four millions of men, though it were chosen by eight and forty millions; nor is it the better for being guided by a dozen of persons of quality, who have betrayed their trust in order to obtain that power.
Edmund Burke
#92. The Fate of good men who refuse to become involved in politics is to be ruled by evil men.
Edmund Burke
#93. I consider how little man is, yet, in his own mind, how great. He is lord and master of all things, yet scarce can command anything.
Edmund Burke
#94. There is a time when the hoary head of inveterate abuse will neither draw reverence nor obtain protection.
Edmund Burke
#95. Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.
Edmund Burke
#97. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.
Edmund Burke
#98. It may be observed, that very polished languages, and such as are praised for their superior clearness and perspicuity, are generally deficient in strength.
Edmund Burke
#99. Not men but measures a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honorable engagement.
Edmund Burke
#100. Gambling is a principle inherent in human nature.
Edmund Burke
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