Edmund Burke Quotes
The greatest crimes do not arise from a want of feeling for others but from an over-sensibilit y for ourselves and an over-indulgence to our own desires
Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all.
It is hard to say whether doctors of law or divinity have made the greater advances in the lucrative business of mystery.
The nerve that never relaxes, the eye that never blanches, the thought that never wanders, the purpose that never wavers - these are the masters of victory.
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.
True humility-the basis of the Christian system-is the low but deep and firm foundation of all virtues.
When a great man has some one object in view to be achieved in a given time, it may be absolutely necessary for him to walk out of all the common roads.
The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.
The great inlet by which a colour for oppression has entered into the world is by one man's pretending to determine concerning the happiness of another.
That the greatest security of the people, against the encroachments and usurpations of their superiors, is to keep the Spirit of Liberty constantly awake, is an undeniable truth
Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy of superstition.
Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.
The most important of all revolutions, a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions.
Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but selection. Parsimony requires no providence, no sagacity, no powers of combination, no comparison, no judgment.
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.
Dogs are indeed the most social, affectionate, and amiable animals of the whole brute creation.
The great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of the great.
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.
Greater mischief happens often from folly, meanness, and vanity than from the greater sins of avarice and ambition.
A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
Restraint and discipline and examples of virtue and justice. These are the things that form the education of the world.
Men who undertake considerable things, even in a regular way, ought to give us ground to presume ability.
The wise 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.
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.
He that accuses all mankind of corruption ought to remember that he is sure to convict only one.
