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Portrait of Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke

(1729–1797) Philosopher United States

595 quotes in 1765 categories

Edmund Burke warns that power can be intoxicating and hard to give up. He urges leaders to focus on the root causes of evil, not just its names, and to let prudence and virtue guide the great. He also reminds us that liberty and duty matter in politics.

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Edmund Burke was a philosopher from the United States, best known for An account of the European settlements in America.

Quick Facts About Edmund Burke

Born: January 12, 1729
Died: July 9, 1797
Nationality: United States
Profession: Philosopher
Notable works: An account of the European settlements in America

About Edmund Burke

He is regarded as a leading conservative thinker of the 18th century. Burke spent most of his career in Great Britain and served as a Member of Parliament from 1766 to 1794 with the Whig Party. His writings shaped public opinion in Britain and France after the French Revolution and he remains an important figure in modern conservative circles.

Quotes by Edmund Burke

Patience will achieve more than force.

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Fraud is the ready minister of injustice.

Fraud

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That cardinal virtue, temperance.

Cardinal

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Pleasure of every kind quickly satisfies.

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Responsibility prevents crimes.

Crime

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Man is an animal that cooks his victuals.

Animal

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The grand instructor, time.

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To innovate is not to reform.

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By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little.

Hate

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

Business

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Equity money is dynamic and debt money is static.

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All the forces of darkness need to succeed ... is for the people to do nothing.

Darkness

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Water is insipid, inodorous, colorless and smooth.

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“We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us”

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One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.

Enemy

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Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.

Fear

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In their nomination to office they will not appoint to the exercise of authority as to a pitiful job, but as to…

Authority

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Make the Revolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery of future revolutions.

Nursery

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Man is by his constitution a religious animal; atheism is against not only our reason, but our instincts.

Animal

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Prudence is a quality incompatible with vice, and can never be effectively enlisted in its cause.

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The moment that government appears at market, the principles of the market will be subverted.

Economics

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It may be observed, that very polished languages, and such as are praised for their superior clearness and perspicuity, are generally deficient…

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

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But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice,…

Character

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He had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame;…

Ardent

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People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to…

Hope

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To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive…

Age

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As mankind becomes more enlightened to know their real interests, they will esteem the value of agriculture; they will find it in…

Agriculture

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“But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice,…

Character

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Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatever; but, as in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an economy…

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Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else; and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through…

Courage

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Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new impositions; any bungler can add to the old; but is it altogether…

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“As to the right of men to act anywhere according to their pleasure, without any moral tie, no such right exists. Men…

Freedom

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Reflect how you are to govern a people who think they ought to be free, and think they are not. Your scheme…

America

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“. . . you would have had a protected, satisfied, laborious, and obedient people, taught to seek and to recognize the happiness…

Character

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The starry heaven, though it occurs so very frequently to our view, never fails to excite an idea of grandeur. This cannot…

Advantage

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Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any…

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“These metaphysic rights entering into common life, like rays of light which pierce into a dense medium, are, by the laws of…

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The distinguishing part of our constitution is its liberty. To preserve that liberty inviolate, is the peculiar duty and proper trust of…

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“But when the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state,…

Democracy

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Edmund Burke by topic

Men (96) Politics (63) Freedom (43) Virtue (40) Inspirational (38) Psychology (37) Character (37) Wisdom (36) Mind (36) Love (36) People (32) Nature (32) Religion (29) Government (29) Liberty (27) Law (26) Power (24) Justice (23) Evil (23)