Famous Quotes by Edmund Burke (95 Quotations)

Great men are the guideposts and landmarks in the state.

Edmund Burke – [Greatness]

He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. This amicable conflict with difficulty helps us to an intimate acquaintance with our object, and compels us to consider it in all its relations. It will not suffer us to be superficial.

Edmund Burke – [Opposition]

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.

Edmund Burke – [Planning]

I know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power.

Edmund Burke – [Power]

I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophists, economists and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is gone forever.

Edmund Burke – [Courage]

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

Edmund Burke – [People]

If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.

Edmund Burke – [Wealth]

If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.

Edmund Burke – [Virtue]

In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But the works of malice and injustice are quite in another style. They are finished with a bold, masterly hand; touched as they are with the spirit of those vehement passions that call forth all our energies, whenever we oppress and persecute.

Edmund Burke – [Malice]

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.

Edmund Burke – [Law and Lawyers]

In the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows.

Edmund Burke – [Repression]

In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will remain for some time mutinous and full of faction, until some popular general, who understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself. Armies will obey him on his personal account. There is no other way of securing military obedience in this state of things.

Edmund Burke – [Army and Navy]

In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars.

Edmund Burke – [Inheritance]

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

Edmund Burke – [Complaints and Complaining]

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

Edmund Burke – [Business]

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

Edmund Burke – [Facts]

It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs.

Edmund Burke – [Wealth]

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

Edmund Burke – [Tyranny]

Laws, like houses, lean on one another.

Edmund Burke – [Law and Lawyers]

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

Edmund Burke – [Liberty]