Edmund Burke quotes

Born
12 January 1729 12 Arran Quay, Dublin, Ireland.

Died
9 July 1797.

Occupation
Writer, politician, journalist, philosopher.

Edmund Burke was an Anglo-Irishstatesman born in Dublin, as well as an author, orator, political theorist and philosopher, who after moving to London in 1750 served as a member of parliament between 1766 and 1794 in the House of Commons with the Whig Party.

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
– Edmund Burke

People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.
– Edmund Burke

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.
– Edmund Burke

All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
– Edmund Burke

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.
– Edmund Burke

The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.
– Edmund Burke

Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.
– Edmund Burke

Tyrants seldom want pretexts.
– Edmund Burke

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

Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil.
– Edmund Burke

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.
– Edmund Burke

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
– Edmund Burke

What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.
– Edmund Burke

It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs.
– Edmund Burke

Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none.
– Edmund Burke

Laws, like houses, lean on one another.
– Edmund Burke

Falsehood is a perennial spring.
– Edmund Burke

Our patience will achieve more than our force.
– Edmund Burke

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
– Edmund Burke

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
– Edmund Burke

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.
– Edmund Burke

Free trade is not based on utility but on justice.
– Edmund Burke

The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.
– Edmund Burke

To innovate is not to reform.
– Edmund Burke

Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.
– Edmund Burke

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.
– Edmund Burke

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
– Edmund Burke

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.
– Edmund Burke

Ambition can creep as well as soar.
– Edmund Burke

Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.
– Edmund Burke

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
– Edmund Burke