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Edmund Burke Quotes


A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.

A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

All that's necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.

Ambition can creep as well as soar.

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.

Beauty is the promise of happiness.

But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.

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.

By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.

Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.

Custom reconciles us to everything.

Education is the cheap defense of nations.

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