Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter. — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
To execute laws is a royal office; to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
Where two motives, neither of them perfectly justifiable, may be assigned, the worst has the chance of being preferred. — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
If any ask me what a free government is, I answer, that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
The public interest requires doing today those things that men of intelligence and good will would wish, five or ten years hence,… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
The parties are the gamesters; but government keeps the table, and is sure to be the winner in the end. — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
For as wealth is power, so all power will infallibly draw wealth to itself by some means or other; and when men… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
It is the love of the people; it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
It is very rare, indeed, for men to be wrong in their feelings concerning public misconduct; as rare to be right in… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
Refined policy ever has been the parent of confusion, and ever will be so as long as the world endures. Plain good… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
But a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
The only liberty that is valuable is a liberty connected with order; that not only exists along with order and virtue, but… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
To give freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to guide; it only requires to let go the rein. But… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
History consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
No government ought to exist for the purpose of checking the prosperity of its people or to allow such a principle in… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
All writers on the science of policy are agreed, and they agree with experience, that all governments must frequently infringe the rules… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
The moment you abate anything from the full rights of men to each govern himself, and suffer any artificial positive limitation upon… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
“A man full of warm, speculative benevolence may wish his society otherwise constituted than he finds it; but a good patriot, and… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
There is a sort of enthusiasm in all projectors, absolutely necessary for their affairs, which makes them proof against the most fatiguing… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
“All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter. We balance… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere. — Edmund Burke Copy Share
“Many of the greatest tyrants on the records of history have begun their reigns in the fairest manner. But the truth is, this unnatural… — Edmund Burke Copy Share
In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution… — Edmund Burke Copy Share
“Wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to names; to the causes of evil which are permanent, not to the occasional organs… — Edmund Burke Copy Share
“A man full of warm, speculative benevolence may wish his society otherwise constituted than he finds it; but a good patriot, and a true… — Edmund Burke Copy Share
The great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of thegreat. — Edmund Burke Copy Share
Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never… — Edmund Burke Copy Share
What is it we all seek for in an election? To answer its real purposes, you must first possess the means of knowing the… — Edmund Burke Copy Share
Society is indeed a contract. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in… — Edmund Burke Copy Share
The great inlet by which a colour for oppression has entered into the world is by one man's pretending to determine concerning the happiness… — Edmund Burke Copy Share
By the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never… — Edmund Burke Copy Share
Religion, to have any force upon men's understandings,--indeed, to exist at all,--must be supposed paramount to law, and independent for its substance upon any… — Edmund Burke Copy Share
