Edmund Burke

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

— Edmund Burke

Rudeness is the weak mans imitation of strength.

— Edmund Burke

Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures.

— Edmund Burke

A nation is not conquered which is perpetually to be conquered.

— Edmund Burke

A speculative despair is unpardonable where it our duty to act.

— Edmund Burke

Education is the cheap defense of nations.

— Edmund Burke

History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.

— Edmund Burke

It has all the contortions of the sibyl without the inspiration.

— Edmund Burke

A great deal of the furniture of ancient tyranny is torn to rags; the rest is entirely out of fashion.

— Edmund Burke

A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.

— Edmund Burke

Oppression makes wise men mad; but the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which is better than the sobriety of…

— Edmund Burke

Nothing is so rash as fear; its counsels very rarely put off, whilst they are always sure to aggravate the evils from…

— Edmund Burke

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

— Edmund Burke

All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they may alter the mode and application, but have no power over the substance…

— Edmund Burke

It is by imitation, far more than by precept, that we learn everything; and what we learn thus, we acquire not only…

— Edmund Burke

Flattery is no more than what raises in a man's mind an idea of a preference which he has not.

— Edmund Burke

Men have no right to put the well-being of the present generation wholly out of the question. Perhaps the only moral trust…

— Edmund Burke

In a free country every man thinks he has a concern in all public matters,--that he has a right to form and…

— Edmund Burke

I do not know how to wish success to those whose Victory is to separate from us a large and noble part…

— Edmund Burke

Among precautions against ambition, it may not be amiss to take precautions against our own. I must fairly say, I dread our…

— Edmund Burke

It is for the most part in our skill in manners, and in the observations of time and place and of decency…

— Edmund Burke

“The worst of these politics of revolution is this: they temper and harden the breast, in order to prepare it for the…

— Edmund Burke

Contempt is not a thing to be despised. It may be borne with a calm and equal mind, but no man, by…

— Edmund Burke

Magnificence is likewise a source of the sublime. A great profusion of things which are splendid or valuable in themselves is magnificent.…

— Edmund Burke

“The rights of men, that is to say, the natural rights of mankind, are indeed sacred things; and if any public measure…

— Edmund Burke

“It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never…

— Edmund Burke

I dread our own power and our own ambition; I dread our being too much dreaded…We may say that we shall not…

— Edmund Burke

Facts are to the mind what food is to the body. On the due digestion of the former depend the strength and…

— Edmund Burke

“Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided…

— Edmund Burke

“Through the same plan of a conformity to nature in our artificial institutions, and by calling in the aid of her unerring…

— Edmund Burke

“Far am I from denying in theory, full as far is my heart from withholding in practice, (if I were of power…

— Edmund Burke

The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and…

— Edmund Burke

I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.

— Edmund Burke

Depend upon it that the lovers of freedom will be free.

— Edmund Burke

To speak of atrocious crime in mild language is treason to virtue.

— Edmund Burke

Great men are never sufficiently shown but in struggles.

— Edmund Burke

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

— Edmund Burke

Over-taxation cost England her colonies of North America.

— Edmund Burke

Free trade is not based on utility but on justice.

— Edmund Burke

“No man had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him.”

— Edmund Burke