Edmund Burke > Quotes

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

“Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.”
― Edmund Burke

“Woman is not made to be the admiration of all, but the happiness of one.”
― Edmund Burke

“Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.”
― Edmund Burke

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

“Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.”
― Edmund Burke

“Well is it known that ambition can creep as well as soar.”
― 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. Those who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths.”
― Edmund Burke

“Our patience will achieve more than our force.”
― Edmund Burke

“Never apologise for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologise for the truth.”
― Edmund Burke

“It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
― Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."

[Preface to Brissot's Address to His Constituents (1794)]”
― Edmund Burke, On Empire, Liberty, and Reform: Speeches and Letters

“Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.”
― Edmund Burke

“When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.”
― Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents

“No power so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”
― 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

“He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.”
― Edmund Burke

“It is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.”
― Edmund Burke

“If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.”
― Edmund Burke

“People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.”
― Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

“There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.”
― Edmund Burke

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, — in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity,—in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption,—in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
― Edmund Burke, A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly

“Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.”
― Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

“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, Speech on Conciliation with America

“They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.”
― Edmund Burke

“The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.”
― Edmund Burke

“Kings will be tyrants by policy when subjects are rebels from principle.”
― Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

“I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that the delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it.”
― Edmund Burke

“There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.”
― Edmund Burke