Quotes By Edmund Burke

The person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon him; he indulges it, he loves it; but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time.

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.

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

The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.

It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.

When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.

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

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

Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.

Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations - wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.

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

Education is the cheap defense of nations.

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.

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

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

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

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

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

Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.

Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.

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

Falsehood is a perennial spring.

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

Beauty is the promise of happiness.

Custom reconciles us to everything.

Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.

You can never plan the future by the past.

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.

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

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.