Edmund Burke quotes

The greater the power the more dangerous the abuse.
Edmund Burke

We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.
Edmund Burke

Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.
Edmund Burke

Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
Edmund Burke

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right
that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom.
Edmund Burke

It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this
great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole
people.
Edmund Burke

Well it is known that ambition can creep as well as soar.
Edmund Burke

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 in imitation of His perfections.
Edmund Burke

Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.
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

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

Frugality is founded on the principle that all riches have limits.
Edmund Burke

A good parson once said that where mystery begins religion ends. Cannot I say, as truly at
least, of human laws, that where mystery begins, justice ends?
Edmund Burke

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

Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
Edmund Burke

In their nomination to office they will not appoint to the exercise of authority as to a pitiful
job, but as to a holy function.
Edmund Burke

Manners are of more importance than laws. The law can touch us here and there, now and
then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine
us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation like that of the air we breathe in.
Edmund Burke

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to the good.
Edmund Burke

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

People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.
Edmund Burke

If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude
that to be good from whence good is derived.
Edmund Burke

Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security.
Edmund Burke

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

Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.
Edmund Burke

All who have ever written on government are unanimous, that among a people generally
corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.
Edmund Burke

Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he
contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.
Edmund Burke

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.
Edmund Burke

And having looked to government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite
the hand that fed them.
Edmund Burke

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