Edmund Burke Quotes (222 Quotes)

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

Learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.

The traveller has reached the end of the journey!

The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.

Education is the cheap defense of nations.

Young man, there is America, which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners.

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

My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron.

We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.

To innovate is not to reform.

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

A nation without the means of reform is without the means of survival

The more accurately we search into the human mind, the stronger traces we everywhere find of the wisdom of Him who made it.

Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood

Applaud us when we run, Console us when we fall, Cheer us when we recover.

Those who quit their proper character to assume what does not belong to them, are for the greater part ignorant of Both the character they leave and of the character they Assume.

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.

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions than ruined by too confident a security.

Fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren.

Too much idleness, I have observed, fills up a man's time much more completely, and leaves him less his own master, than any other sort of employment whatsoever.

The people are the masters.

Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.

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

Where mystery begins religion ends.

Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.

If any ask me what a free government is, I answer, that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think so, - and that they, and not I, are the natural, lawful, and competent judges of this matter.

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.

An event... upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.

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

I know that many have been taught to think that moderation, in a case like this, is a sort of treason

Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant.

Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.

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

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

The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

Beauty is the promise of happiness.

When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot possibly be estimated. From that moment we have no compass to govern us, nor can we know distinctly to what port to steer.

They made and recorded a sort of institute and digest of anarchy, called the Rights of Man.

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

Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.

Those who attempt to level never equalize. In all societies some description must be uppermost. The levellers, therefore, only change and pervert the natural order of things they load the edifice of society by setting up in the air what the solidity of the structure requires to be on the ground.

When a great man has some one object in view to be achieved in a given time, it may be absolutely necessary for him to walk out of all the common roads.

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

The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.

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.