Edmund Burke Quotes

“I have been told by an eminent bookseller, that in no branch of his business , after tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as those on the law exported to the Plantations .”

Has Beens Book Law Devotion Branches Plantations Booksellers

Book:The Political Tracts and Speeches of Edmund Burke

Source: The Political Tracts and Speeches of Edmund Burke

“That great chain of causes, which, linking one to another, even to the throne of God Himself, can never be unraveled by any industry of ours.”

Causes Mystery Industry Chains Thrones

Book:The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke: A vindication of natural society

Source: The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke: A vindication of natural society

“The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise isgone! it isgone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honour, which felt a stain like a wound, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.”

Evil Lost Nations Felt Half Principles Grace Losing Vices Wounds Enterprise Touched Sentiments Honour Heroic Nurse Sensibility Defence Stains Chastity Manly

Author:Edmund Burke

“Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation.You choose a Member indeed; but when you have chosen him, heisnotthe Member for Bristol, but heisa Member of Parliament.”

Nations Members Chosen You Choose Parliament Assembly Members Of Parliament Bristol

Author:Edmund Burke

“Man is by his constitution a religious animal; atheism is against not only our reason, but our instincts.”

Men Reason Religious Animal Atheism Constitution Instinct

Author:Edmund Burke

“The power of discretionary disqualification by one law of Parliament, and the necessity of paying every debt of the Civil List by another law of Parliament, if suffered to pass unnoticed, must establish such a fund of rewards and terrors as will make Parliament the best appendage and support of arbitrary power that ever was invented by the wit of man.”

Ifs Men Law Support Rewards Terror Debt Lists Wit Fund Parliament Arbitrary Unnoticed Disqualification

Book:Burke, Select Works

Source: Burke, Select Works

“Nothing less will content me, than wholeAmerica.”

Author:Edmund Burke

“We begin our public affection in our families. No cold relation is a zealous citizen.”

Cold Citizens Relation Affection Our Family Zealous

Author:Edmund Burke

“A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way towards informing us of the nature of the thing defined.”

Way May Littles Definitions Defined Informing

Book:The Works of Edmund Burke

Source: The Works of Edmund Burke

“Jacobinism is the revolt of the enterprising talents of a country against its property.”

Country Talent Property Revolt Enterprising

Book:Maxims and opinions, moral, political and economical, with characters, from the works of ... Edmund Burke

Source: Maxims and opinions, moral, political and economical, with characters, from the works of ... 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.”

Looks May Evil Practice Theory Excellent

Book:The Works and Correspondance of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

Source: The Works and Correspondance of the Right Honourable 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.”

Age Past Common Mankind Complaining Disposition Extravagant Lament

Author:Edmund Burke

“It is the love of the people; it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army 168 and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience, without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber.”

People Giving Government Would Be Army Institutions Obedience Glorious Attachment Stakes Navy Rotten Timber

Author:Edmund Burke

“Somebody has said, that a king may make a nobleman but he cannot make a gentleman.”

May Said Kings Gentleman Noblemen

Author:Edmund Burke

“I decline the election. It has ever been my rule through life, to observe a proportion between my efforts and my objects. I have never been remarkable for a bold, active, and sanguine pursuit of advantages that are personal to myself.”

Effort Objects Advantage Election Active Pursuit Proportion Remarkable Decline Sanguine

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)

“Neither the few nor the many have a right to act merely by their will, in any matter connected with duty, trust, engagement, or obligation.”

Matter Duty Connected Obligation Engagement

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)

“Between craft and credulity, the voice of reason is stifled.”

Reason Voice Crafts Credulity Voice Of Reason

Author:Edmund Burke

“Old religious factions are volcanoes burnt out.”

Religious Factions Volcanoes Burnt Out

Author:Edmund Burke

“The great difference between the real leader and the pretender is that the one sees into the future, while the other regards only the present; the one lives by the day, and acts upon expediency; the other acts on enduring principles and for the immortality.”

Real Leadership Differences Leader Principles Regard Endure Immortality Live By Expediency Pretender

Author:Edmund Burke

“By looking into physical causes our minds are opened and enlarged; and in this pursuit, whether we take or whether we lose the game, the chase is certainly of service.”

Mind Games Causes Loses Pursuit

Book:A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

Source: A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

“He that borrows the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own; he that uses that of a superior elevates his own to the stature of that he contemplates.”

Use Understanding Equal Aids Superiors Contemplating Stature

Author:Edmund Burke

“Over-taxation cost England her colonies of North America.”

America Cost England Taxation Colony North America

Author:Edmund Burke

“The only training for the heroic is the mundane.”

Training Heroic Mundane

Author:Edmund Burke

“When you find me attempting to break into your house to take your plate, under any pretence whatsoever, but most of all under pretence of purity of religion and Christian charity shoot me for a robber and a hypocrite, as in that case I shall certainly be.”

Christian Religion House Break Cases Morality Charity Purity Plates Attempting Find Me Hypocrite Robbers Pretence

Book:Selected Letters of Edmund Burke

Source: Selected Letters of Edmund Burke

“The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself.”

Wisdom Politics Interesting Economy Circumstances Property Valuable Our Family Liberalism Belonging Ancestry Perpetuating

Book:Revolutionary Writings: Reflections on the Revolution in France and the First Letter on a Regicide Peace

Source: Revolutionary Writings: Reflections on the Revolution in France and the First Letter on a Regicide Peace

“Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself; and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all it combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. In this partnership all men have equal rights; but not to equal things.”

Men Wisdom Politics Force Can Do Economy Rights Skills Equal Fairs Favors Combination Liberalism Portions Partnership Equal Rights Trespassing

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)

“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.”

Thinking Men World Believe Atheism Positive Atheism Wicked Virtuous Infancy Credulity Tainted Diabolical

Author:Edmund Burke

“Silence is golden but when it threatens your freedom it's yellow.”

Silence Golden Yellow Freedom Of Speech Silence Is Your Freedom Silence Is Golden

Author:Edmund Burke

“We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us.”

Hands Bites Ingratitude

Author:Edmund Burke

“Guilt was never a rational thing; it distorts all the faculties of the human mind, it perverts them, it leaves a man no longer in the free use of his reason, it puts him into confusion.”

Men Mind Humans Reason Use Guilt Rational Confusion Faculty Human Mind

Book:Celebrated Speeches of Chatham, Burke, and Erskine: To which is Added the Arguement of Mr. Mackintosh in the Case of Peltier

Source: Celebrated Speeches of Chatham, Burke, and Erskine: To which is Added the Arguement of Mr. Mackintosh in the Case of Peltier

“Genuine simplicity of heart is a healing and cementing principle.”

Heart Healing Principles Simplicity Genuine

Book:.) (1853).

Source: .) (1853).

“There is a time when the hoary head of inveterate abuse will neither draw reverence nor obtain protection.”

Draws Abuse Protection Reverence

Book:The Speeches of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, with Memoir and Historical Introductions. By James Burke

Source: The Speeches of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, with Memoir and Historical Introductions. By James Burke

“There is a wide difference between admiration and love. The sublime, which is the cause of the former, always dwells on great objects and terrible; the latter on small ones and pleasing; we submit to what we admire, but we love what submits to us: in one case we are forced, in the other, we are flattered, into compliance.”

Causes Differences Cases Objects Terrible And Love Wide Admire Former Latter Admiration Submit Sublime Flattered Compliance

Book:A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

Source: A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

“He who calls in the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own; and he who profits by a superior understanding raises his powers to a level with the height of the superior standing he unites with.”

Understanding Levels Advice Equal Standing Raises Profit Aids Superiors Height

Author:Edmund Burke

“The pride of men will not often suffer reason to have scope until it can be no longer of service.”

Men Reason Suffering Advice Pride Scope

Book:The Works and Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

Source: The Works and Correspondence of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke

“Turbulent, discontented men of quality, in proportion as they are puffed up with personal pride and arrogance, generally despise their own order.”

Men Order Quality Pride Arrogance Proportion Despise Aristocracy Personal Pride Pride And Arrogance

Book:The works and correspondence of...Edmund Burke

Source: The works and correspondence of...Edmund Burke

“The only kind of sublimity which a painter or sculptor should aim at is to express by certain proportions and positions of limbs and features that strength and dignity of mind, and vigor and activity of body, which enables men to conceive and execute great actions.”

Men Should Mind Kind Art Body Action Certain Position Activity Dignity Aim Painter Features Proportion Limbs Vigor Sculptors Sublimity

Author:Edmund Burke

“Sallust is indisputably one of the best historians among the Romans, both for the purity of his language and the elegance of his style.”

Language Style Purity Historian Elegance Authorship

Book:The Early Life Correspondence and Writings of The Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke

Source: The Early Life Correspondence and Writings of The Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke

“It is by bribing, not so often by being bribed, that wicked politicians bring ruin on mankind. Avarice is a rival to the pursuits of many.”

Mankind Politician Pursuit Ruins Wicked Rivals Avarice

Book:Maxims and opinions, moral, political and economical, with characters, from the works of ... Edmund Burke

Source: Maxims and opinions, moral, political and economical, with characters, from the works of ... Edmund Burke

“Teach me, O lark! with thee to greatly rise, to exalt my soul and lift it to the skies.”

Soul Teach Sky My Soul Thee Lifts Larks

Book:The works and correspondence of...Edmund Burke

Source: The works and correspondence of...Edmund Burke

“It is undoubtedly true, though it may seem paradoxical,--but, in general, those who are habitually employed in finding and displaying faults are unqualified for the work of reformation.”

May Seems Findings Faults Employed Reformation Paradoxical Unqualified

Book:The works and correspondence of...Edmund Burke

Source: The works and correspondence of...Edmund Burke

“The introduction of Christianity, which, under whatever form, always confers such inestimable benefits on mankind, soon made a sensible change in these rude and fierce manners.”

Made Form Christianity Mankind Benefits Manners Sensible Fierce Rude Introduction

Book:Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches

Source: Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches

“Surely the church is a place where one day's truce ought to be allowed to the dissensions and animosities of mankind.”

Church Mankind Ought One Day Animosity Dissension Truce

Book:On Taste on the Sublime and Beautiful, Reflections on the Revolution, A Letter to a Noble Lord

Source: On Taste on the Sublime and Beautiful, Reflections on the Revolution, A Letter to a Noble Lord

“The tribunal of conscience exists independent of edicts and decrees.”

Conscience Independent Decree Tribunals

Author:Edmund Burke

“Contempt is not a thing to be despised. It may be borne with a calm and equal mind, but no man, by lifting his head high, can pretend that he does not perceive the scorns that are poured down on him from above.”

Men Mind May Doe Equal Calm Perceive Contempt Scorn Lifting Despised

Book:Works

Source: Works

“The perfection of conversation is not to play a regular sonata, but, like the AEolian harp, to await the inspiration of the passing breeze.”

Play Inspiration Conversation Perfection Passing Passings Breeze Harps Sonatas

Author:Edmund Burke

“Is it in destroying and pulling down that skill is displayed? The shallowest understanding, the rudest hand, is more than equal to that task.”

Hands Understanding Skills Equal Tasks Critics Destroying Pulling

Book:Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)

Source: Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)

“Curiosity is the most superficial of all the affections; it changes its object perpetually; it has an appetite which is very sharp, but very easily satisfied, and it has always an appearance of giddiness, restlessness and anxiety.”

Objects Anxiety Curiosity Affection Appearance Satisfied Appetite Superficial Restlessness

Book:A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

Source: A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

“I cannot help concurring with the opinion that an absolute democracy, no more than absolute monarchy, is to be reckoned among the legitimate forms of government.”

Helping Government Form Opinion Democracy Absolutes Monarchy Forms Of Government Absolute Monarchy

Book:Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches

Source: Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches

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

Grows Religious Peaceful Cheer Burned Ashes Corn Vines Factions Sustaining Olives Volcanoes Eruption Lava Burned Out

Book:The Speeches of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, with Memoir and Historical Introductions. By James Burke

Source: The Speeches of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, with Memoir and Historical Introductions. By James Burke

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