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Edmund Burke Quotes about Passion

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Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites…in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in

Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites…in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

Edmund Burke
Wise, Passion, Men
Letter to a Member of the National Assembly, 1791.

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.

Edmund Burke
Passion, Men, Mind

It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

Edmund Burke
Passion, Character, Men
Edmund Burke (1803). “The Works of ... Edmund Burke”, p.64

A populace never rebels from passion for attack, but from impatience of suffering.

Edmund Burke
Passion, Suffering, Rebel

There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.

Edmund Burke
Peace, Passion, Creativity
Edmund Burke (1826). “The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke”, p.422

We are in a war of a peculiar nature. It is not with an ordinary community, which is hostile or friendly as passion or as interest may veer about: not with a state which makes war through wantonness, and abandons it through lassitude. We are at war with a system, which by its essence, is inimical to all other governments, and which makes peace or war, as peace and war may best contribute to their subversion. It is with an armed doctrine that we are at war. It has, by its essence, a faction of opinion, and of interest, and of enthusiasm, in every country.

Edmund Burke
Country, War, Passion

Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.

Edmund Burke
Passion, Soul, Intuition
Edmund Burke, John Shebbeare (1776). “An Answer to the Printed Speech of Edmund Burke, Esq; spoken in the House of Commons, April 19, 1774, etc. By John Shebbeare”, p.191

Next to love, Sympathy is the divinest passion of the human heart.

Edmund Burke
Sympathy, Condolences, Passion

He had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame; a passion which is the instinct of all great souls.

Edmund Burke
Passion, Soul, Causes
William Pitt (Earl of Chatham), Edmund Burke, Thomas Erskine Baron Erskine, Jean Gabriel Peltier (1834). “Celebrated Speeches of Chatham, Burke, and Erskine: To which is Added the Arguement of Mr. Mackintosh in the Case of Peltier”, p.87

Poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general as well as a more powerful dominion over the passions than the art of painting.

Edmund Burke
Art, Powerful, Passion
Edmund Burke (1999). “The Portable Edmund Burke”, p.93, Penguin

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
Pain, Passion, Men
Edmund Burke (1834). “The Works of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke: With a Biographical and Critical Introduction, and Portrait After Sir Joshua Reynolds”, p.32

In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But theworks of malice and injustice are quite in another style. They are finished with a bold, masterly hand; touched as they are with the spirit of those vehement passions that call forth all our energies, whenever we oppress and persecute.

Edmund Burke
Passion, Hands, Style
Edmund Burke (1852). “The Works and Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke”, p.435

Continue to instruct the world; and - whilst we carry on a poor unequal conflict with the passions and prejudices of our day, perhaps with no better weapons than other passions and prejudices of our own - convey wisdom to future generations.

Edmund Burke
Passion, History, Prejudice
Edmund Burke (1852). “The Works and Correspondence Of...Edmund Burke”, p.340

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