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Edmund Burke Quotes - Page 15

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As to great and commanding talents, they are the gift of Providence in some way unknown to us, they rise where they are least expected; they fail when everything seems disposed to produce them, or at least to call them

As to great and commanding talents, they are the gift of Providence in some way unknown to us, they rise where they are least expected; they fail when everything seems disposed to produce them, or at least to call them forth.

Way, Talent, Failing

Edmund Burke (1852). “The Works and Correspondence Of...Edmund Burke”, p.607

It is undoubtedly the business of ministers very much to consult the inclinations of the people, but they ought to take great care that they do not receive that inclination from the few persons who may happen to approach them.

People, Care, May

Edmund Burke (1834). “The Beauties of Burke, Consisting of Selections from His Works”, p.126

No sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity.

Christian, Healing, Voice

Edmund Burke (1792). “The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Collected in Three Volumes. Vol. I.[-III.].”, p.33

It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.

Drawing, Ideas, People

Edmund Burke (1963). “Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches”, p.201, Transaction Publishers

The very name of a politician, a statesman, is sure to cause terror and hatred; it has always connected with it the ideas of treachery, cruelty, fraud, and tyranny.

Names, Ideas, Hatred

Edmund Burke (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)”, p.33, Delphi Classics

Some degree of novelty must be one of the materials in almost every instrument which works upon the mind; and curiosity blends itself, more or less, with all our pleasures.

Curiosity, Mind, Degrees

It is in the relaxation of security; it is in the expansion of prosperity; it is in the hour of dilatation of the heart, and of its softening into festivity and pleasure, that the real character of men is discerned.

Real, Heart, Character

Edmund Burke (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)”, p.3681, Delphi Classics

Among precautions against ambition, it may not be amiss to take precautions against our own. I must fairly say, I dread our own power and our own ambition: I dread our being too much dreaded.

Ambition, Power, May

Edmund Burke (1807). “The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke”, p.116

He that borrows the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own; he that uses that of a superior elevates his own to the stature of that he contemplates.

Understanding, Use, Aids

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

Jobs, Exercise, Office

Edmund Burke (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)”, p.1453, Delphi Classics

Wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to names; to the causes of evil which are permanent, not the occasional organs by which they act, and the transitory modes in which they appear.

Wise, Men, Names

Edmund Burke (1852). “The works and correspondence of...Edmund Burke”, p.267

Virtue will catch as well as vice by contact; and the public stock of honest manly principle will daily accumulate. We are not too nicely to scrutinize motives as long as action is irreproachable. It is enough (and for a worthy man perhaps too much) to deal out its infamy to convicted guilt and declared apostasy.

Men, Long, Guilt

Edmund Burke (2008). “The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke: On Conciliation with America; Security of the Independence of Parliament; on Mr. Fox's East India”, p.242, Cosimo, Inc.

The wisdom of our ancestors.

Wisdom, Ancestor

Edmund Burke (2005). “Burke, Select Works”, p.271, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

I know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power.

Power, Sublime, Modification

Edmund Burke (1824). “A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful”, p.62

The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise isgone! it isgone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.

Nurse, Evil, Grace

'Reflections on the Revolution in France' (1790) p. 113

To execute laws is a royal office; to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust.

Kings, Order, Law

Edmund Burke (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)”, p.1537, Delphi Classics

I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong. They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries and in this. But I do say that in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people.

Country, Thinking, People

'Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents' (1770) p. 7

Our manners, our civilization, and all the good things connected with manners and civilization, have, in this European world of ours, depended for ages upon two principles: I mean the spirit of a gentleman, and the spirit of religion.

Mean, Civilization, Two

Edmund Burke, Robert MONTGOMERY (Author of “Satan.”.) (1853). “Edmund Burke: being first principles selected from his writings. With an introductory essay by Robert Montgomery”, p.127

The only kind of sublimity which a painter or sculptor should aim at is to express by certain proportions and positions of limbs and features that strength and dignity of mind, and vigor and activity of body, which enables men to conceive and execute great actions.

Art, Men, Mind

Nnothing tends more to the corruption of science than to suffer it to stagnate. These waters must be troubled, before they can exert their virtues.

Science, Water, Suffering

"On Taste, on the Sublime and Beautiful, Reflections on the French Revolution & a Letter to a Noble Lord".

Power, in whatever hands, is rarely guilty of too strict limitations on itself.

Power, Hands, Guilty

Edmund Burke (1811). “Maxims and opinions, moral, political and economical, with characters, from the works of ... Edmund Burke”, p.46

Nothing is so rash as fear; and the counsels of pusillanimity very rarely put off, whilst they are always sure to aggravate, the evils from which they would fly.

Evil, Anticipation

"Revolutionary Writings: Reflections on the Revolution in France and the First Letter on a Regicide Peace".

We must soften into a credulity below the milkiness of infancy to think all men virtuous. We must be tainted with a malignity truly diabolical, to believe all the world to be equally wicked and corrupt.

Believe, Men, Thinking

'Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents' (1770) p. 30

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

May, Language, Clearness

Edmund Burke (1824). “A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful”, p.187

We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us.

Hands, Bites, Ingratitude

Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770)

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