Edmund Burke

But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.

To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.

Tyrants seldom want pretexts.

Guilt was never a rational thing it distorts all the faculties of the human mind it perverts them it leaves a man no longer in the free use of his reason it puts him into confusion.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

An appearance of delicacy, and even fragility, is almost essential to beauty.

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.

Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.

There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.

It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere.

To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.

If the prudence of reserve and decorum dictates silence in some circumstances, in others prudence of a higher order may justify us in speaking our thoughts.

Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.

Good order is the foundation of all things.

Nothing is so rash as fear; its counsels very rarely put off, whilst they are always sure to aggravate the evils from which it would fly.

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.

Geography is an earthly subject but a heavenly science.

To innovate is not to reform.

Great men are the guideposts and landmarks in the state.

Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.

The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity of life of the marvellous structure of reality.

Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.

A perfect democracy is therefore the most shameless thing in the world.

Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.

The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind is curiosity.

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

The most important of all revolutions, a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions.

Ambition can creep as well as soar.

It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

Slavery is a state so improper, so degrading, and so ruinous to the feelings and capacities of human nature, that it ought not to be suffered to exist.

It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

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.

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

Genuine simplicity of heart is a healing and cementing principle.

Magnificence is likewise a source of the sublime. A great profusion of things which are splendid or valuable in themselves is magnificent. The starry heaven, though it occurs so very frequently to our view, never fails to excite an idea of grandeur.

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.

Education is the cheap defense of nations.

Facts are to the mind what food is to the body.

Crimes lead one into another they who are capable of being forgers are capable of being incendiaries.

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.

Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.

A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arises from words.

The march of the human mind is slow.

Our patience will achieve more than our force.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

Whenever government abandons law, it proclaims anarchy.

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.

Prudence is a quality incompatible with vice, and can never be effectively enlisted in its cause.

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.

Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.

A representative owes not just his industry but his judgement.

If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived.

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

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.

Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.

Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives preaching of a new gospel.

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.

All that's necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.

Laws, like houses, lean on one another.

Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.

A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.

Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.

Not men but measures a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honorable engagement.

By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.

Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.

Death is natural to a man, but slavery unnatural; and the moment you strip a man of his liberty you strip him of all his virtues: you convert his heart into a dark hole, in which all the vices conspire against you.

What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.

Greater mischief happens often from folly, meanness, and vanity than from the greater sins of avarice and ambition.

The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.

The traveller has reached the end of the journey!

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

He that struggles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

Free trade is not based on utility but on justice.

The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

You can never plan the future by the past.

Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.

The grand instructor time.

Water is insipid, inodorous, colorless and smooth.

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.

He that accuses all mankind of corruption ought to remember that he is sure to convict only one.

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.

Frugality is founded on the principal that all riches have limits.

Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.

A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.