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


Edmund Burke

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More Edmund Burke

The most important of all revolutions, a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions.
EDMUND BURKE Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.
EDMUND BURKE But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; fo...
EDMUND BURKE The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.
EDMUND BURKE Ambition can creep as well as soar.
EDMUND BURKE One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.
EDMUND BURKE There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under ...
EDMUND BURKE She is not made to be the admiration of all, but the happiness of one.
EDMUND BURKE My vigour relents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.
EDMUND BURKE The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
EDMUND BURKE But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; ...
EDMUND BURKE The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up a...
EDMUND BURKE But the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resist...
EDMUND BURKE What shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart.
EDMUND BURKE The balance of power.
EDMUND BURKE Of this stamp is the cant of, not men, but measures.
EDMUND BURKE You had that action and counteraction which, in the natural and in the political world, from the re...
EDMUND BURKE I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against an whole people.
EDMUND BURKE There was an ancient Roman lawyer, of great fame in the history of Roman jurisprudence, whom they c...
EDMUND BURKE The nerve that never relaxes, the eye that never blanches, the thought that never wanders, the purp...
EDMUND BURKE If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.
EDMUND BURKE Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in a...
EDMUND BURKE It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this gr...
EDMUND BURKE Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, un...
EDMUND BURKE Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that thes...
EDMUND BURKE And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the h...
EDMUND BURKE All government--indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act--is f...
EDMUND BURKE Learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.
EDMUND BURKE No sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity.
EDMUND BURKE We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.
EDMUND BURKE Applaud us when we run, Console us when we fall, Cheer us when we recover.
EDMUND BURKE The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the nece...
EDMUND BURKE I know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power.
EDMUND BURKE Among precautions against ambition, it may not be amiss to take precautions against our own. I must ...
EDMUND BURKE Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, eve...
EDMUND BURKE Woman is not made to be the admiration of all, but the happiness of one.
EDMUND BURKE Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
EDMUND BURKE Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
EDMUND BURKE The objects of a financier are, then, to secure an ample revenue; to impose it with judgment and equ...
EDMUND BURKE You can never plan the future by the past.
EDMUND BURKE A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a stat...
EDMUND BURKE Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminati...
EDMUND BURKE Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill ...
EDMUND BURKE By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.
EDMUND BURKE People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be...
EDMUND BURKE Bad laws are the worst form of tyranny.
EDMUND BURKE In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical ...
EDMUND BURKE Laws, like houses, lean on one another.
EDMUND BURKE There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law...
EDMUND BURKE A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhoo...
EDMUND BURKE Young man, there is America, which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories...
EDMUND BURKE To please universally was the object of his life; but to tax and to please, no more than to love and...
EDMUND BURKE It is undoubtedly the business of ministers very much to consult the inclinations of the people, but...
EDMUND BURKE But a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the most of the existi...
EDMUND BURKE Society is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all art, a partnership in every virtue and...
EDMUND BURKE Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement. No sound ought to be heard in the chur...
EDMUND BURKE A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood.
EDMUND BURKE Fraud and prevarication are servile vices. They sometimes grow out of the necessities, always out of...
EDMUND BURKE The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts.
EDMUND BURKE That the greatest security of the people, against the encroachments and usurpations of their superio...
EDMUND BURKE The distinguishing part of our Constitution is its liberty. To preserve that liberty inviolate seems...
EDMUND BURKE I did not obey your instructions. No. I conformed to the instructions of truth and Nature, and maint...
EDMUND BURKE Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these ...
EDMUND BURKE If any ask me what a free government is, I answer, that, for any practical purpose, it is what the p...
EDMUND BURKE There is a courageous wisdom; there is also a false, reptile prudence, the result not of caution but...
EDMUND BURKE What is it we all seek for in an election? To answer its real purposes, you must first possess the m...
EDMUND BURKE Education is the cheap defence of nations.
EDMUND BURKE Contempt is not a thing to be despised.
EDMUND BURKE I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his...
EDMUND BURKE Certainly, Gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the stri...
EDMUND BURKE Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young men, and I will tell ...
EDMUND BURKE I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.
EDMUND BURKE We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.
EDMUND BURKE A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.
EDMUND BURKE It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere.
EDMUND BURKE I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threa...
EDMUND BURKE There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the ...
EDMUND BURKE When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice...
EDMUND BURKE Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.
EDMUND BURKE Now, as a law directed against the mass of the nation has not the nature of a reasonable institution...
EDMUND BURKE Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.
EDMUND BURKE No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
EDMUND BURKE Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, und...
EDMUND BURKE Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.
EDMUND BURKE An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.
EDMUND BURKE Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be...
EDMUND BURKE When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot possibly be estimated. From ...
EDMUND BURKE Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.
EDMUND BURKE They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.
EDMUND BURKE Society is indeed a contract. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partne...
EDMUND BURKE A populace never rebels from passion for attack, but from impatience of suffering.
EDMUND BURKE Restraint and discipline and examples of virtue and justice. These are the things that form the educ...
EDMUND BURKE In the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows.
EDMUND BURKE Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none.
EDMUND BURKE There is a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
EDMUND BURKE Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new compositions, any bungler can add to the ...
EDMUND BURKE To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.
EDMUND BURKE I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much ...
EDMUND BURKE If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be ...
EDMUND BURKE To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
EDMUND BURKE Our patience will achieve more than our force.
EDMUND BURKE Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests ea...
EDMUND BURKE Good order is the foundation of all great things.
EDMUND BURKE The yielding of the weak is the concession to fear.
EDMUND BURKE When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in th...
EDMUND BURKE If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.
EDMUND BURKE What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.
EDMUND BURKE The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.
EDMUND BURKE Tyrants seldom want pretexts.
EDMUND BURKE Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.
EDMUND BURKE And having looked to government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the ha...
EDMUND BURKE In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army wil...
EDMUND BURKE It is from this absolute indifference and tranquillity of the mind, that mathematical speculations d...
EDMUND BURKE Manners are of more importance than laws. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt o...
EDMUND BURKE Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upo...
EDMUND BURKE The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
EDMUND BURKE Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other
EDMUND BURKE Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.
EDMUND BURKE Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in a...
EDMUND BURKE In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood;...
EDMUND BURKE A nation is not conquered which is perpetually to be conquered.
EDMUND BURKE Spain: A whale stranded upon the coast of Europe.
EDMUND BURKE He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helpe...
EDMUND BURKE In a democracy the majority of citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the...
EDMUND BURKE The great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dom...
EDMUND BURKE Great men are the guideposts and landmarks in the state.
EDMUND BURKE People will not look forward to posterity who will not look backward to their ancestors.
EDMUND BURKE In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and of all things afraid of being t...
EDMUND BURKE Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.
EDMUND BURKE The people never give up their liberties, but under some delusion.
EDMUND BURKE The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it w...
EDMUND BURKE It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this gre...
EDMUND BURKE Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.
EDMUND BURKE The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One canno...
EDMUND BURKE Whenever our neighbor's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our...
EDMUND BURKE People must be taken as they are, and we should never try make them or ourselves better by quarrelin...
EDMUND BURKE Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society...
EDMUND BURKE Custom reconciles us to everything.
EDMUND BURKE Some degree of novelty must be one of the materials in almost every instrument which works upon the ...
EDMUND BURKE Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.
EDMUND BURKE All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is fo...
EDMUND BURKE Some decent regulated pre-eminence, some preference (not exclusive appropriation) given to birth, i...
EDMUND BURKE The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting ...
EDMUND BURKE People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.
EDMUND BURKE A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manho...
EDMUND BURKE Young man, there is America--which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with storie...
EDMUND BURKE Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.
EDMUND BURKE Chapter of accidents.
EDMUND BURKE Men who undertake considerable things, even in a regular way, ought to give us ground to presume ab...
EDMUND BURKE I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and...
EDMUND BURKE The greatest crimes do not arise from a want of feeling for others but from an over-sensibility for ...
EDMUND BURKE It has all the contortions of the sibyl without the inspiration.
EDMUND BURKE Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference which is, at least, half infidelity.
EDMUND BURKE A perfect democracy is therefore the most shameless thing in the world.
EDMUND BURKE That chastity of honour which felt a stain like a wound.
EDMUND BURKE Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the pub...
EDMUND BURKE Resolved to die in the last dyke of prevarication.
EDMUND BURKE No man can mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity.
EDMUND BURKE We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.
EDMUND BURKE Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laught...
EDMUND BURKE It is the function of a judge not to make but to declare the law, according to the golden mete-wand...
EDMUND BURKE The cold neutrality of an impartial judge.
EDMUND BURKE There is however a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
EDMUND BURKE Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it...
EDMUND BURKE Never despair; but if you do, work on in despair
EDMUND BURKE Turn over a new leaf.
EDMUND BURKE Next to love, sympathy is the divinest passion of the human heart
EDMUND BURKE But the concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear.
EDMUND BURKE Vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.
EDMUND BURKE What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.
EDMUND BURKE The body of all true religion consists, to be sure, in obedience to the will of the Sovereign of th...
EDMUND BURKE The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic e...
EDMUND BURKE The men of England--the men, I mean of light and leading in England.
EDMUND BURKE Calamity is man's true touchstone
EDMUND BURKE Illustrious Predecessor.
EDMUND BURKE Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.
EDMUND BURKE A good parson once said that where mystery begins religion ends. Cannot I say, as truly at least, ...
EDMUND BURKE When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifi...
EDMUND BURKE Falsehood is a perennial spring.
EDMUND BURKE All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
EDMUND BURKE But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for...
EDMUND BURKE All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
EDMUND BURKE Better be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident security.
EDMUND BURKE Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises; for never intending to go beyond promises; i...
EDMUND BURKE Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.
EDMUND BURKE Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives preaching of a new gospel.
EDMUND BURKE It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to...
EDMUND BURKE The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.
EDMUND BURKE Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.
EDMUND BURKE Frugality is founded on the principal that all riches have limits.
EDMUND BURKE The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
EDMUND BURKE In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upo...
EDMUND BURKE All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
EDMUND BURKE To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
EDMUND BURKE Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.
EDMUND BURKE The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
EDMUND BURKE It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.
EDMUND BURKE But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and ...
EDMUND BURKE The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please; we ought to see what it w...
EDMUND BURKE He had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoder...
EDMUND BURKE