Edmund Burke quotes - page 12

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. (Edmund Burke)
Fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren. View quote
Edmund Burke
A perfect democracy is therefore the most shameless thing in the world. View quote
Edmund Burke
It has all the contortions of the sibyl without the inspiration. View quote
Edmund Burke
Man acts from adequate motives relative to his interest, and not on metaphysical speculations. View quote
Edmund Burke
In the groves of their academy, at the end of every vista, you see nothing but the gallows. View quote
Edmund Burke
The worthy gentleman who has been snatched from us at the moment of the election, and in the middle of the contest, whilst his desires were as warm and his hopes as eager as ours, has feelingly told us what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue. View quote
Edmund Burke
In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed and the boldest staggered. View quote
Edmund Burke
I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people. View quote
Edmund Burke
The religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principles of resistance it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion. View quote
Edmund Burke
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. (Edmund Burke)
A nation is not conquered which is perpetually to be conquered. View quote
Edmund Burke
These few have the passions of the one; and they unite to strengthen themselves, and to secure the gratification of their lawless passions at the expense of the general good. View quote
Edmund Burke
The lawyers, as well as the theologians, have erected another reason besides natural reason; and the result has been, another justice besides natural justice. View quote
Edmund Burke
Whatever is supreme in a state, ought to have, as much as possible, its judicial authority so constituted as not only not to depend upon it, but in some sort to balance it. View quote
Edmund Burke
In a state of nature, it is an invariable law, that a man's acquisitions are in proportion to his labours. In a state of artificial society, it is a law as constant and as invariable, that those who labour most enjoy the fewest things; and that those who labour not at all have the greatest number of enjoyments. View quote
Edmund Burke
In such a strait the wisest may well be perplexed, and the boldest staggered. The circumstances are in a great measure new. We have hardly any land-marks from the wisdom of our ancestors, to guide us. At best we can only follow the spirit of their proceeding in other cases. View quote
Edmund Burke
A great profusion of things, which are splendid or valuable in themselves, is magnificent. The starry heaven, though it occurs so very frequently to our view, never fails to excite an idea of grandeur. This cannot be owing to the stars themselves, separately considered. The number is certainly the cause. View quote
Edmund Burke
You are, my Lord, but just entering into the world; I am going out of it. I have played long enough to be heartily tired of the drama. View quote
Edmund Burke
Parties in religion and politics make sufficient discoveries concerning each other, to give a sober man a proper caution against them all. View quote
Edmund Burke
The nearer we approach to the goal of life, the better we begin to understand the true value of our existence, and the real weight of our opinions. We set out much in love with both; but we leave much behind us as we advance. (Edmund Burke)
The great instrument of all these changes, and what infuses a peculiar venom into all of them, is party. It is of no consequence what the principles of any party, or what their pretensions, are; the spirit which actuates all parties is the same; the spirit of ambition, of self-interest, of oppression, and treachery. This spirit entirely reverses all the principles which a benevolent nature has erected within us; all honesty, all equal justice, and even the ties of natural society, the natural affections. View quote
Edmund Burke
In vain you tell me that artificial government is good, but that I fall out only with the abuse. The thing! the thing itself is the abuse! View quote
Edmund Burke
If pretended revelations have caused wars where they were opposed, and slavery where they were received, the pretended wise inventions of politicians have done the same. But the slavery has been much heavier, the wars far more bloody, and both more universal by many degrees. View quote
Edmund Burke
There are few with whom I can communicate so freely as with Pope. But Pope cannot bear every truth. He has a timidity which hinders the full exertion of his faculties, almost as effectually as bigotry cramps those of the general herd of mankind. View quote
Edmund Burke