Looking for the best and inspirational Edmund Burke quotes?
Edmund Burke was a British statesman and philosopher. He is known for his philosophical writings on the nature of government, espousing the conservative philosophy.
He is a figure that has been argued about for decades. He is often reinterpreted to suit new interpretations of society and current events. He was a proponent of liberal conservatism, whose political ideas have profoundly influenced the conservative tradition in Great Britain and the United States.
Burke’s ideas were broadly influential in North America and Europe during the 19th and 20th centuries. And we are still debating them today.
Check out this list of quotes from him who have shared hopeful words that can give you a much-needed boost.
Top 83 Edmund Burke Quotes
“The yielding of the weak is the concession to fear.”
“Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he could only do a little“
“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”
“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”
“There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue“
“A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.”
“Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security.”
“There is a boundary to men’s passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.”
“The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity“
“The greatest gift is a passion for reading.”
“There is a boundary to men’s passions when they act from feelings, but none when they are under the influence of imagination.”
“It is our ignorance of things that causes all our admiration and chiefly excites our passions.”
“I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that the delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it.”
“He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.”
“Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.”
“Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver, and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.”
“The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.”
“The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.”
“Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.”
“Woman is not made to be the admiration of all, but the happiness of one.”
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing“
“The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts“
“The great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of the great.”
“Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.”
“Ambition can creep as well as soar.”
“Free trade is not based on utility but on justice“
“When ancient opinions and rules of life are taken away, the loss cannot possibly be estimated. From that moment, we have no compass to govern us, nor can we know distinctly to what port to steer.”
“Society is a partnership of the dead, the living and the unborn.”
“If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.”
“Nothing is such an enemy to accuracy of judgment as a coarse discrimination; a want of such classification and distribution as the subject admits of.”
“You can never plan the future by the past.”
“Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.”
“We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us.”
“The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.”
“Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new compositions, any bungler can add to the old.”
“Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.”
“Some decent, regulated preeminence, some preference given to birth, is neither unnatural nor unjust nor impolite.”
“It is not, what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice, tell me I ought to do.”
“Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.”
“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”
“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
“There is a courageous wisdom; there is also a false, reptile prudence, the result not of caution but of fear“
“Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.”
“There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.”
“No power so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”
“The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear.”
“It is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.”
“Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than be ruined by too confident a security“
“People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.”
“I know of nothing sublime which is not some modification of power.”
“All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.”
“All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice“
“The march of the human mind is slow.”
“The nature of things is, I admit, a sturdy adversary.”
“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”
“In the weakness of one kind of authority, and in the fluctuation of all, the officers of an army will remain for some time mutinous and full of faction, until some popular general, who understands the art of conciliating the soldiery, and who possesses the true spirit of command, shall draw the eyes of all men upon himself. Armies will obey him on his personal account. There is no other way of securing military obedience in this state of things.”
“Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.”
“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.”
“We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us”
“The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.”
“Facts are to the mind what food is to the body.”
“A state without the means of some change, is without the means of its own conservation.”
“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 anything but power for their relief.”
“Those who attempt to level, never equalize.”
“We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.”
“Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.”
“In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars.”
“A representative owes not just his industry but his judgement”
“Facts are to the mind what food is to the body“
“We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.”
“People must be taken as they are, and we should never try make them or ourselves better by quarreling with them.”
“Beauty is the promise of happiness.”
“Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.”
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
“It is generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles and design.”
“Our patience will achieve more than our force.”
“Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.”
“There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.”
“Never apologise for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologise for the truth.”
“Great men are the guideposts and landmarks in the state.”
“I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophists, economists and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is gone forever.”
