Edmund Burke Quotes About Politics

Quotes about: Politics

• When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

  Edmund Burke

  Honesty, Integrity, War

  Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770) See Edmund Burke 28; Mill 18

• It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.

  Edmund Burke

  Errors, Liberty, Grumbling

  'Observations on...the Present State of the Nation' (1769)

• Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

  Edmund Burke

  Long, People, Political

  'Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol' (1777) p. 71

• By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little.

  Edmund Burke

  Hate, Men, Political

  1790 Reflections on the Revolution in France.

• Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.

  Edmund Burke

  Sacrifice, Government, Political

  Speech to electors of Bristol, 3 Nov. 1774

• There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity - the law of nature and of nations.

  Edmund Burke

  Wisdom, Equality, Law

  Speech, 28 May 1794, in E. A. Bond (ed.) 'Speeches...in the Trial of Warren Hastings' (1859) vol. 4, p. 377

• Those who have been intoxicated with power... can never willingly abandon it.

  Edmund Burke

  Power, Political, Term Limits

• History consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetite.

  Edmund Burke

  Revenge, Ambition, Pride

  Edmund Burke (1868). “Reflections on the Revolution in France and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event: 1790”, p.161

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

  Edmund Burke

  Commitment, Government, Political

  "On Moving His Resolutions for Conciliation with the Colonies," 22 Mar. 1775

• Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.

  Edmund Burke

  Agreement, Political, Politics

  Edmund Burke (2014). “Revolutionary Writings: Reflections on the Revolution in France and the First Letter on a Regicide Peace”, p.12, Cambridge University Press

• There is a sort of enthusiasm in all projectors, absolutely necessary for their affairs, which makes them proof against the most fatiguing delays, the most mortifying disappointments, the most shocking insults; and, what is severer than all, the presumptuous judgement of the ignorant upon their designs.

  Edmund Burke

  Disappointment, Design, Judgement

  "The Works of Edmund Burke in Nine Volumes", Vol. IX, Boston: Little, Brown, 1839.

• 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.

  Edmund Burke

  Struggle, Political, World

  Edmund Burke (1804). “Maxims and opinions, moral, political and economical, with characters, from the works of ... Edmund Burke”, p.148

• Where two motives, neither of them perfectly justifiable, may be assigned, the worst has the chance of being preferred.

  Edmund Burke

  Two, Political, May

  Edmund Burke (2008). “The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke”, p.343, Cosimo, Inc.

• This sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his nature.

  Edmund Burke

  Taken, Men, Rights

  Edmund Burke (1852). “The Works and Correspondance of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke”, p.203

• Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue.

  Edmund Burke

  Power, Mind, Politics

  "The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke: Collected in Three Volumes".

• The public interest requires doing today those things that men of intelligence and good will would wish, five or ten years hence, had been done.

  Edmund Burke

  Men, Years, Wish

• I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong. They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries and in this. But I do say that in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people.

  Edmund Burke

  Country, Thinking, People

  'Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents' (1770) p. 7

• The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself.

  Edmund Burke

  Wisdom, Interesting, Politics

  Edmund Burke (2014). “Revolutionary Writings: Reflections on the Revolution in France and the First Letter on a Regicide Peace”, p.52, Cambridge University Press

• The whole compass of the language is tried to find sinonimies [synonyms] and circumlocutions for massacres and murder. Things never called by their common names. Massacre is sometimes called agitation, sometimes effervescence, sometimes excess sometimes too continued an exercise of revolutionary power.

  Edmund Burke

  Exercise, Names, Agitation

• Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself; and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all it combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. In this partnership all men have equal rights; but not to equal things.

  Edmund Burke

  Wisdom, Men, Rights

  Edmund Burke (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)”, p.1426, Delphi Classics

• Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

  Edmund Burke

  Mind, Together, Politics

  Speech 'On Conciliation with America' 22 March 1775

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

  Edmund Burke

  Taken, Together, Would Be

  Edmund Burke (1798). “The Beauties of the Late Right Hon. Edmund Burke: Selected from the Writings, &c. of that Extraordinary Man, Alphabetically Arranged ... to which is Prefixed, a Sketch of the Life, with Some Original Anecdotes of Mr. Burke”, p.383

• 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.

  Edmund Burke

  Reality, Color, Giving

  Edmund Burke (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)”, p.1385, Delphi Classics

• 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

  Agents, Ambassadors, Politics

  Edmund Burke (1999). “The Portable Edmund Burke”, p.172, Penguin

• To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.

  Edmund Burke

  Love, Wise, Business

  Speech on American Taxation, 19 Apr. 1774

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