Edmund Burke Quotes

339 Sourced Quotes

We must soften into a credulity below the milkiness of infancy to think all men virtuous. We must be tainted with a malignity truly diabolical, to believe all the world to be equally wicked and corrupt.

Edmund Burke
Corrupt influence, which is itself the perennial spring of all prodigality, and of all disorder; which loads us, more than millions of debt; which takes away vigor from our arms, wisdom from our councils, and every shadow of authority and credit from the most venerable parts of our constitution.

Edmund Burke
The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.

Edmund Burke
We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature, and the means perhaps of its conservation.

Edmund Burke
Though ugliness be the opposite of beauty, it is not the opposite to proportion and fitness; for it is possible that a thing may be very ugly with any proportions, and with a perfect fitness for any use.

Edmund Burke
Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.

Edmund Burke
I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche, upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases.

Edmund Burke
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
Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.

Edmund Burke
Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind.

Edmund Burke
Knowledge of those unalterable Relations which Providence has ordained that every thing should bear to every other...To these we should conform in good Earnest; and not think to force Nature, and the whole Order of her System, by a Compliance with our Pride, and Folly, to conform to our artificial Regulations.

Edmund Burke
I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.

Edmund Burke
There was an ancient Roman lawyer, of great fame in the history of Roman jurisprudence, whom they called Cui Bono, from his having first introduced into judicial proceedings the argument, "What end or object could the party have had in the act with which he is accused."

Edmund Burke
A thing may look specious in theory, and yet be ruinous in practice; a thing may look evil in theory, and yet be in practice excellent.

Edmund Burke
Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to any thing but power for their relief.

Edmund Burke
The wise will determine from the gravity of the case; the irritable from sensibility to oppression; the high-minded from disdain and indignation at abusive power in unworthy hands.

Edmund Burke
Learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.

Edmund Burke
It is for the most part in our skill in manners, and in the observations of time and place and of decency in general, that what is called taste by way of distinction consists; and which is in reality no other than a more refined judgment.

Edmund Burke
There ought to be 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
Politics ought to be adjusted not to human reasonings but to human nature, of which reason is but a part and by no means the greatest part.

Edmund Burke
I take toleration to be a part of religion. I do not know which I would sacrifice; I would keep them both: it is not necessary that I should sacrifice either.

Edmund Burke
To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind.

Edmund Burke
In no country perhaps in the world is law so general a study [as in America].... This study renders men acute, inquisitive, dexterous, prompt in attack, ready in defense, full of resources.... They augur misgovernment at a distance, and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.

Edmund Burke
So to be patriots as not to forget we are gentlemen.

Edmund Burke
In the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows.

Edmund Burke