Government is the exercise of all the great qualities of the human mind. — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue. — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
The moment that government appears at market, the principles of the market will be subverted. — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
The Fate of good men who refuse to become involved in politics is to be ruled by evil men. — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government. — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
I have in general no very exalted opinion of the virtue of paper government. — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them. — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
This sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
I cannot help concurring with the opinion that an absolute democracy, no more than absolute monarchy, is to be reckoned among the… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
The very name of a politician, a statesman, is sure to cause terror and hatred; it has always connected with it the… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
It is by bribing, not so often by being bribed, that wicked politicians bring ruin on mankind. Avarice is a rival to… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
You had that action and counteraction which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
Politics ought to be adjusted not to human reasonings but to human nature, of which reason is but a part and by… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
“The worst of these politics of revolution is this: they temper and harden the breast, in order to prepare it for the… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
“It is undoubtedly true, though it may seem paradoxical; but in general, those who are habitually employed in finding and displaying faults,… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong. They have been so, frequently and… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
“A government of five hundred country attornies and obscure curates is not good for twenty-four millions of men, though it were chosen… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else; and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
To govern according to the sense and agreement of the interests of the people is a great and glorious object of governance.… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
“Thus these politicians proceed, whilst little notice is taken of their doctrines; but when they come to be examined upon the plain… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself; and he has a… — 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
Obstinacy, sir, is certainly a great vice; and in the changeful state of political affairs it is frequently the cause of great… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
“Everybody is satisfied, that a conservation and secure enjoyment of our natural rights is the great and ultimate purpose of civil society;… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate,… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
“. . . a nation is not an idea only of local extent, and individual momentary aggregation; but it is an idea… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
“By a constitutional policy, working after the pattern of nature, we receive, we hold, we transmit our government and our privileges, in… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
“The Levellers . . . only change and pervert the natural order of things: they load the edifice of society by setting… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
“. . . they who plead an absolute right cannot be satisfied with anything short of personal representation, because all natural rights… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
“Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
“Certainly, Gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence,… — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
Those who have been intoxicated with power... can never willingly abandon it. — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. — 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
Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. — 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
It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere. — Edmund Burke Copy Share Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
