Edmund Burke quotes - page 4

Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament. (Edmund Burke)
You had that action and counteraction which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers draws out the harmony of the universe. View quote
Edmund Burke
We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation. View quote
Edmund Burke
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. View quote
Edmund Burke
Beauty is the promise of happiness. View quote
Edmund Burke
Liberty, too, must be limited in order to be possessed. View quote
Edmund Burke
Early and provident fear is the mother of safety. View quote
Edmund Burke
If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue. View quote
Edmund Burke
The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own. View quote
Edmund Burke
A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood. View quote
Edmund Burke
Learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude. (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. View quote
Edmund Burke
The wisdom of our ancestors. View quote
Edmund Burke
To execute laws is a royal office to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust. View quote
Edmund Burke
Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found. View quote
Edmund Burke
All those instances to be found in history, whether real or fabulous, of a doubtful public spirit, at which morality is perplexed, reason is staggered, and from which affrighted Nature recoils, are their chosen and almost sole examples for the instruction of their youth. View quote
Edmund Burke
There never was a bad man that had ability for good service. View quote
Edmund Burke
Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty. View quote
Edmund Burke
Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures. View quote
Edmund Burke
Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist. View quote
Edmund Burke
There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue. (Edmund Burke)
The men of England, the men, I mean, of light and leading in England. View quote
Edmund Burke
Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness. View quote
Edmund Burke
I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard than in the tomb of the Capulets. View quote
Edmund Burke
Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray, to not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field that, of course, they are many in number or that, after all, they are other than the little, shriveled, meagre, hopping, though loud and troublesome insects of the hour. View quote
Edmund Burke