1729-1797, British Political Writer, Statesman
Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.
Edmund Burke – [Politicians and Politics]


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 in.
Edmund Burke – [Manners]


Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites; in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity; in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption; in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves.
Edmund Burke – [Civil Rights]


Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.
Edmund Burke – [Economy and Economics]


Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.
Edmund Burke – [Doubt]


No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
Edmund Burke – [Fear]


Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.
Edmund Burke – [Aristocracy]


Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference which is, at least, half infidelity.
Edmund Burke – [Religion]


Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.
Edmund Burke – [Government]


Our patience will achieve more than our force.
Edmund Burke – [Patience]


Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament.
Edmund Burke – [Parliament]


Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.
Edmund Burke – [Fame]


Patience will achieve more than force.
Edmund Burke – [Patience]


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 must to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.
Edmund Burke – [Law and Lawyers]


People must be taken as they are, and we should never try make them or ourselves better by quarreling with them.
Edmund Burke – [Relationships]


People will not look forward to posterity who will not look backward to their ancestors.
Edmund Burke – [History and Historians]


Restraint and discipline and examples of virtue and justice. These are the things that form the education of the world.
Edmund Burke – [Restraint]


Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.
Edmund Burke – [Slavery]


Society is indeed a contract. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.
Edmund Burke – [Society]


Spain: A whale stranded upon the coast of Europe.
Edmund Burke – [Nations]

Quotations 41 to 60 of 95 First < Previous Next > Last