Quotes By Edmund Burke

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.

You can never plan the future by the past.

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

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

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.

Falsehood is a perennial spring.

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

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

Beauty is the promise of happiness.

Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.

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

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.

Custom reconciles us to everything.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.

Free trade is not based on utility but on justice.

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

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.

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