Edmund Burke Quotes

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

“All who have ever written on government are unanimous, that among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.”

“Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.”

“And having looked to the government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.”

“Art is a partnership not only between those who are living but between those who are dead and those who are yet to be born.”

“As the rose-tree is composed of the sweetest flowers and the sharpest thorns, as the heavens are sometimes overcast — alternately tempestuous and serene — so is the life of man intermingled with hopes and fears, with joys and sorrows, with pleasure and pain.”

“As to the right of men to act anywhere according to their pleasure, without any moral tie, no such right exists. Men are never in a state of total independence of each other.

It is not the condition of our nature: nor is it conceivable how any man can pursue a considerable course of action without its having some effect upon others; or, of course, without producing some degree of responsibility for his conduct.”

“Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.”

“Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.”

“Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field.”

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

“Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.”

“Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.”

“Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy for superstition.”

“Good order is the foundation of all things.”

“He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.”

“I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that the delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it.”

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

“If an idiot were to tell you the same story every day for a year, you would end by believing it.”

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

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

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

“Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.”

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites.”

“Men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

“Never apologise for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologise for the truth.”

“Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.”

“Never, no, never did Nature say one thing and Wisdom say another.”

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