How little man is; yet, in his own mind, how great! He is lord and master of all things, yet scarce can command anything. He is given a freedom of his will; but wherefore? Was it but to torment and perplex him the more? How little avails this freedom, if the objects he is to act upon be not as much disposed to obey as he is to command!
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Man
There ought to be a system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Manners, Patriotism
One source of sublimity is infinity.
—Edmund Burke
Oppression makes wise men mad; but the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which is better than the sobriety of fools.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Oppression
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.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Power
Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he could only do a little.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Mistakes, One Step at a Time, Action, Helping
Unluckily the credulity of dupes is as inexhaustible as the invention of knaves. They never give people possession; but they always keep them in hope.
—Edmund Burke
Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society. It is indeed one sign of a liberal and benevolent mind to incline to it with some sort of partial propensity.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Aristocracy
Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Tolerance
Of all things wisdom is the most terrified with epidemical fanaticism, because, of all enemies, it is that against which she is the least able to furnish any kind of resource.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Fanaticism
If an idiot were to tell you the same story every day for a year, you would end by believing him.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Habit, Habits
A wise and salutary neglect.
—Edmund Burke
Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young men, and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Youth
I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophists, economists and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is gone forever.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Courage, Bravery
When bad men combine, the good must associate, else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Evil
I despair of ever receiving the same degree of pleasure from the most exalted performances of genius which I felt in childhood from pieces which my present judgment regards as trifling and contemptible.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Romance
There is a courageous wisdom; there is also a false, reptile prudence, the result not of caution but of fear.
—Edmund Burke
A populace never rebels from passion for attack, but from impatience of suffering.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Revolution
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
Topics: Liberty
And having looked to government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them. To avoid that evil, government will redouble the causes of it; and then it will become inveterate and incurable.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Welfare
Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Slavery
Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Safety, Fear
Ambition can creep as well as soar.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Ambition
To make anything very terrible, obscurity seems, in general, to be necessary.—When we know the full extent of any danger, and can accustom our eyes to it, a great deal of the apprehension vanishes.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Mystery
It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Justice, Action
Fraud and prevarication are servile vices. They sometimes grow out of the necessities, always out of the habits, of slavish and degenerate spirits. It is an erect countenance, it is a firm adherence to principle, it is a power of resisting false shame and frivolous fear, that assert our good faith and honor, and assure to us the confidence of mankind.
—Edmund Burke
It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Wealth
Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Liberty
No government ought to exist for the purpose of checking the prosperity of its people or to allow such a principle in its policy.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Government
Without all doubt, charity to the poor is a direct and obligatory duty upon all Christians.
—Edmund Burke
Topics: Charity
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Elizabeth Bowen Irish Novelist
- Sheridan Le Fanu Irish Novelist
- Jonathan Swift Irish Satirist
- William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley British Statesman
- Marquis de Sade French Writer
- John Morley, 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn British Statesman
- Oliver Goldsmith Anglo-Irish Novelist, Poet
- Mohandas K. Gandhi Indian Hindu Political leader
- Benjamin Franklin American Polymath
- Laurens van der Post South African Explorer, Writer
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