British statesman, economist, & philosopher (1729-1797)
Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.
EDMUND BURKE
letter to Wm. Smith, January 29, 1795
A wise and salutary neglect.
EDMUND BURKE
speech on the conciliation of America
Never, no, never did Nature say one thing and Wisdom say another.
EDMUND BURKE
Letters on a Regicide Peace
Nothing tends more to the corruption of science than to suffer it to stagnate. These waters must be troubled before they can exert their virtues. A man who works beyond the surface of things, though he may be wrong himself, yet he clears the way for others, and may chance to make even his errors subservient to the cause of truth.
EDMUND BURKE
The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke
The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.
EDMUND BURKE
preface, A Vindication of Natural Society
Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither is, in my opinion, safe.
EDMUND BURKE
letter, October 1789
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
EDMUND BURKE
Patience will achieve more than force.
EDMUND BURKE
Reflections on the Revolution in France
To innovate is not to reform.
EDMUND BURKE
A Letter to a Noble Lord
All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society.
EDMUND BURKE
Reflections on the Revolution in France
A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arises from words.
EDMUND BURKE
letter to Richard Burke
The person who grieves, suffers his passion to grow upon him; he indulges it, he loves it; but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time.
EDMUND BURKE
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
Laws, like houses, lean on one another.
EDMUND BURKE
Tracts Relative to the Laws Against Popery in Ireland
Good order is the foundation of all good things.
EDMUND BURKE
Reflections on the Revolution in France
Manners are of more importance than laws. The law can touch us here and there, now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation like that of the air we breathe in.
EDMUND BURKE
Letters On a Regicide Peace
Hypocrisy, of course, delights in the most sublime speculations; for, never intending to go beyond speculation, it costs nothing to have it magnificent.
EDMUND BURKE
Reflections on the Revolution in France
The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.
EDMUND BURKE
Reflections on the Revolution in France
Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.
EDMUND BURKE
second speech on Conciliation with America, 1775
People crushed by law, have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much to hope and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous.
EDMUND BURKE
letter to Charles James Fox, October 8, 1777
Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.
EDMUND BURKE
Reflections on the Revolution in France