Quotes by Edmund Burke

Old religious factions are volcanoes burned out; on the lava and ashes and squalid scoriæ of old eruptions, grow the peaceful olive, the cheering vine, and the sustaining corn.

— Edmund Burke

Faith

There is nothing that God has judged good for us that He has not given us the means to accomplish, both in the natural and the moral world.

— Edmund Burke

Life

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.

— Edmund Burke

Freedom

The body of all true religion consists, to be sure, in obedience to the will of the Sovereign of the world, in a confidence in His declarations, and an imitation of His perfections.

— Edmund Burke

Life

Good order is the foundation of all things.

— Edmund Burke

Wisdom

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

— Edmund Burke

Wisdom

Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.

— Edmund Burke

Wisdom

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.

— Edmund Burke

Education

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

— Edmund Burke

Wisdom

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

— Edmund Burke

Wisdom

Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations - wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.

— Edmund Burke

Wisdom

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.

— Edmund Burke

Wisdom

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

— Edmund Burke

Wisdom

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

Wisdom

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

— Edmund Burke

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.

— Edmund Burke

Freedom

The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.

— Edmund Burke

Life

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

— Edmund Burke

Wisdom

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

— Edmund Burke

Wisdom

Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.

— Edmund Burke

Wisdom

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

— Edmund Burke

Courage

Our patience will achieve more than our force.

— Edmund Burke

Success

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

Hope

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.

— Edmund Burke

Wisdom