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Edmund Burke Quotes - Page 2

All Quotes Abuse Adversity Affection Age Aids Ambition Anarchy Army Art Atheism Beauty Business Change Character Charity Church Community Confusion Corruption Country Creation Crime Curiosity Democracy Design Desire Duty Economy Encouragement Energy Enthusiasm Evil Exercise Failing Fear Feelings Flattery Freedom Giving Greatness Hate Healing Heart History House Human Nature Humanity Hypocrisy Imagination Injustice Inspiration Inspirational Judging Judgment Justice Language Liberty Life Losing Love Lying Mankind Military Morality Motivational Nature Oppression Pain Passion Past Peace Perfection Perseverance Planning Pleasure Politics Power Prejudice Pride Property Prosperity Purpose Quality Reality Religion Revolution Sacrifice Society Solitude Soul Struggle Style Success Suffering Talent Teaching Time Trade Treason Tyranny Understanding Virtue War Weakness Wealth Wisdom

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.

Wisdom, Evil, Liberty

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

When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.

People, Leader, Auctions

Edmund Burke (1790). “Reflections on the Revolution in France: And on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. In a Letter Intended to Have Been Sent to a Gentleman in Paris”, p.353

You will smile here at the consistency of those democratists who, when they are not on their guard, treat the humbler part of the community with the greatest contempt, whilst, at the same time they pretend to make them the depositories of all power.

Community, Consistency, Treats

Edmund Burke (1834). “The Works of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke: With a Biographical and Critical Introduction, and Portrait After Sir Joshua Reynolds”, p.402

A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.

Change, Mean, Diversity

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

Long, People, Political

'Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol' (1777) p. 71

Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

Sacrifice, Government, Political

Speech to electors of Bristol, 3 Nov. 1774

Evil prevails when good men fail to act.

Men, Evil, Good Man

People must be taken as they are, and we should never try make them or ourselves better by quarreling with them.

Relationship, Taken, People

Religion is the basis of civil society, and the source of all good and of all comfort.

Religion, Comfort, Source

Edmund Burke (1963). “Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches”, p.560, Transaction Publishers

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

Bullying, Freedom, Work

Speech on the Middlesex Election, 7 February 1771, in 'The Speeches' (1854)

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

Errors, Liberty, Grumbling

'Observations on...the Present State of the Nation' (1769)

Freedom without virtue is not freedom but license to pursue whatever passions prevail in the intemperate mind; man's right to freedom being in exact proportion to his willingness to put chains upon his own appetites; the less restraint from within, the more must be imposed from without.

Passion, Men, Mind

Great men are never sufficiently shown but in struggles.

Struggle, Greatness, Men

Edmund Burke (1852). “The Works and Correspondence Of...Edmund Burke”, p.164

Those who attempt to level never equalize

Levels

1790 Reflections on the Revolution in France.

Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else; and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear which generates true courage.

Mind, Gang, Infamous

Edmund Burke (1852). “The works and correspondence of...Edmund Burke”, p.378

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

Independence, Psychological, Anxious

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

They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.

Failure, Errors, Political

Edmund Burke, James BURKE (Barrister-at-Law.) (1854). “The Speeches of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, with Memoir and Historical Introductions. By James Burke”, p.178

Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.

Hypocrisy, Broken Promises, Cost

Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.

Government, Unjust, Oppressive Governments

Edmund Burke (1912). “Reflections on the French Revolution”, p.235, CUP Archive

All the forces of darkness need to succeed ... is for the people to do nothing.

People, Darkness, Succeed

The great difference between the real leader and the pretender is that the one sees into the future, while the other regards only the present; the one lives by the day, and acts upon expediency; the other acts on enduring principles and for the immortality.

Leadership, Real, Differences

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, to not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; that, of course, they are many in number; or that, after all, they are other than the little, shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour.

Numbers, Imagination, Shadow

Edmund Burke (1963). “Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches”, p.557, Transaction Publishers

There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.

Wisdom, Believe, Men

"Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches".

History consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetite.

Revenge, Ambition, Pride

Edmund Burke (1868). “Reflections on the Revolution in France and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event: 1790”, p.161

The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.

Liberty, Libertarian, Internet

Edmund Burke (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)”, p.3631, Delphi Classics

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