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Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke Quotes

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Famous Edmund Burke Quotes

“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.”

LyingJusticePolicyCircumstancesStandingAbortionSuspicionDepartureCivil Society
Book:Reflections on the Revolution in France: And on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. In a Letter Intended to Have Been Sent to a Gentleman in Paris
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“The person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon him; he indulges it, he loves it; but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time.”

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Book:The Works of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke: With a Biographical and Critical Introduction, and Portrait After Sir Joshua Reynolds
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“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.”

SoulPassionCausesFailingFameInstinctNobleGenerousArdentOwingGreat SoulsNoble Causes
Book:Celebrated Speeches of Chatham, Burke, and Erskine: To which is Added the Arguement of Mr. Mackintosh in the Case of Peltier
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“I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.”

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Book:Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London, Relative to that Event: In a Letter Intended to Have Been Sent to a Gentleman in Paris
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“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites…in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

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Author:Edmund Burke
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“Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling... When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible; but at certain distances, and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are, delightful, as we every day experience.”

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Author:Edmund Burke
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“To give freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to guide; it only requires to let go the rein. But to form a free government; that is, to temper together these opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one work, requires much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and combining mind.”

GivingMindStillsGovernmentTogetherFormEasyPowerfulLibertyLetting GoElementsReflectionOppositesGuidesTemperRestraintReinsCombiningFree Government
Book:Reflections on the French Revolution
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“History consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetite.”

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Book:Reflections on the Revolution in France and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event: 1790
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“In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind.”

WisdomPastHistoryMankindMaterialsErrorsDrawingInstructionVolumeUs HistoryInfirmityGreat History
Book:Reflections on the Revolution in France: And on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. In a Letter Intended to Have Been Sent to a Gentleman in Paris
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“Society is indeed a contract. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”

ArtEndsBornVirtueGenerationsSocietyPerfectionContractsPartnership
Book:The Works of Edmund Burke: With a Memoir
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