A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
- Edmund Burke Quote
A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.
- Edmund Burke Quote
All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.
- Edmund Burke Quote
All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
- Edmund Burke Quote
All that's necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Ambition can creep as well as soar.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Beauty is the promise of happiness.
- Edmund Burke Quote
But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Custom reconciles us to everything.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Education is the cheap defense of nations.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Falsehood is a perennial spring.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Free trade is not based on utility but on justice.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Frugality is founded on the principal that all riches have limits.
- Edmund Burke Quote
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 Quote
He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.
- Edmund Burke Quote
I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.
- Edmund Burke Quote
If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.
- Edmund Burke Quote
If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.
- Edmund Burke Quote
In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.
- Edmund Burke Quote
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 Quote
It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.
- Edmund Burke Quote
It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Laws, like houses, lean on one another.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.
- Edmund Burke Quote
One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Patience will achieve more than force.
- Edmund Burke Quote
People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.
- Edmund Burke Quote
People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives preaching of a new gospel.
- Edmund Burke Quote
The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.
- Edmund Burke Quote
The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
- Edmund Burke Quote
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
- Edmund Burke Quote
The traveller has reached the end of the journey!
- Edmund Burke Quote
The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
- Edmund Burke Quote
There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity - the law of nature and of nations.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.
- Edmund Burke Quote
To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
- Edmund Burke Quote
To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
- Edmund Burke Quote
To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Tyrants seldom want pretexts.
- Edmund Burke Quote
We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Well is it known that ambition can creep as well as soar.
- Edmund Burke Quote
What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.
- Edmund Burke Quote
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.
- Edmund Burke Quote
You can never plan the future by the past.
- Edmund Burke Quote
Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
- Edmund Burke Quote
