Edmund Burke Quotes - Page 12

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Abuse Adversity Affairs Affection Age Aids Ambition

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.

Edmund Burke

Passion, Soul, Causes

William Pitt (Earl of Chatham), Edmund Burke, Thomas Erskine Baron Erskine, Jean Gabriel Peltier (1834). “Celebrated Speeches of Chatham, Burke, and Erskine: To which is Added the Arguement of Mr. Mackintosh in the Case of Peltier”, p.87

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When you find me attempting to break into your house to take your plate, under any pretence whatsoever, but most of all under pretence of purity of religion and Christian charity shoot me for a robber and a hypocrite, as in that case I shall certainly be.

Edmund Burke

Christian, Hypocrite, House

Edmund Burke, Harvey C. Mansfield (1984). “Selected Letters of Edmund Burke”, p.277, University of Chicago Press

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Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants.

Edmund Burke

Government, Want, Humans

'Reflections on the Revolution in France' (1790) p. 88

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In general the languages of most unpolished people have a great force and energy of expression; and this is but natural. Uncultivated people are but ordinary observers of things, and not critical in distinguishing them; but, for that reason, they admire more, and are more affected with what they see, and therefore express themselves in a warmer and more passionate manner.

Edmund Burke

Expression, People, Energy

Edmund Burke (1824). “A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful”, p.188

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Curiosity is the most superficial of all the affections; it changes its object perpetually; it has an appetite which is very sharp, but very easily satisfied, and it has always an appearance of giddiness, restlessness and anxiety.

Edmund Burke

Anxiety, Curiosity, Affection

Edmund Burke (1824). “A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful”, p.24

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War never leaves where it found a nation.

Edmund Burke

War, Found, Nations

Edmund Burke (1826). “The Works of Edmund Burke”, p.163

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Vice incapacitates a man from all public duty; it withers the powers of his under- standing, and makes his mind paralytic.

Edmund Burke

Men, Mind, Vices

Edmund Burke (1882). “The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke”

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It is known that the taste--whatever it is--is improved exactly as we improve our judgment, by extending our knowledge, by a steady attention to our object, and by frequent exercise.

Edmund Burke

Exercise, Attention, Taste

Edmund Burke (1792). “The works of ... Edmund Burke [ed. by W. King and F. Laurence].”, p.87

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War is the matter which fills all history; and consequently the only, or almost the only, view in which we can see the external of political society is in a hostile shape: and the only actions to which we have always seen, and still see, all of them intent, are such as tend to the destruction of one another.

Edmund Burke

War, Views, Political

Edmund Burke (1963). “Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches”, p.58, Transaction Publishers

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Restraint and discipline and examples of virtue and justice. These are the things that form the education of the world.

Edmund Burke

Discipline, Justice, Example

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The moment you abate anything from the full rights of men to each govern himself, and suffer any artificial positive limitation upon those rights, from that moment the whole organization of government becomes a consideration of convenience.

Edmund Burke

Men, Rights, Organization

Edmund Burke (1999). “The Portable Edmund Burke”, p.416, Penguin

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Those who quit their proper character to assume what does not belong to them are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave and of the character they assume.

Edmund Burke

Character, Ignorant, Doe

Edmund Burke (2008). “The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke”, p.246, Cosimo, Inc.

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Man is an animal that cooks his victuals.

Edmund Burke

Animal, Men, Cooks

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Greater mischief happens often from folly, meanness, and vanity than from the greater sins of avarice and ambition.

Edmund Burke

Ambition, Vanity, Sin

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I find along with many virtues in my countrymen there is a jealousy, a soreness, and readiness to take offence, as if they were the most helpless and impotent of mankind, and yet a violence... and a boistrousness in their resentment, as if they had been puffed up with the highest prosperity and power. they will not only be served, but it must also be in their own way and on their own principles and even in words and language that they liked... which renders it very difficult for a plain unguarded man as I am to have anything to do with them or their affairs.

Edmund Burke

Men, History, Way

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That cardinal virtue, temperance.

Edmund Burke

Virtue, Cardinals, Temperance

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Whenever government abandons law, it proclaims anarchy.

Edmund Burke

Government, Law, Anarchy

Edmund Burke (1988). “Irish Affairs”, Vintage

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To drive men from independence to live on alms, is itself great cruelty.

Edmund Burke

Men, Independence, Welfare

Edmund Burke (1852). “The Works and Correspondance of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke”, p.237

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Poetry, with all its obscurity, has a more general as well as a more powerful dominion over the passions than the art of painting.

Edmund Burke

Art, Powerful, Passion

Edmund Burke (1999). “The Portable Edmund Burke”, p.93, Penguin

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I dread our own power, and our own ambition; I dread our being too much dreaded... We may say that we shall not abuse this astonishing, and hitherto unheard-of-power. But every other nation will think we shall abuse it. It is impossible but that, sooner or later, this state of things must produce a combination against us which may end in our ruin.

Edmund Burke

Ambition, Thinking, Abuse

Edmund Burke's remarks on the policy of the allies, as quoted in "The Works of Edmund Burke", 1839.

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The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear.

Edmund Burke

Fear, Weakness, Concessions

Speech 'On Conciliation with America' 22 March 1775

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By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of a summer.

Edmund Burke

Change, Summer, Fashion

Edmund Burke (2005). “Burke, Select Works”, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

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The person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon him; he indulges it, he loves it; but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time.

Edmund Burke

Pain, Passion, Men

Edmund Burke (1834). “The Works of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke: With a Biographical and Critical Introduction, and Portrait After Sir Joshua Reynolds”, p.32

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Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver; and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.

Edmund Burke

Kings, People, Flattery

Edmund Burke (1826). “The Works of Edmund Burke”, p.37

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Unsociable humors are contracted in solitude, which will, in the end, not fail of corrupting the understanding as well as the manners, and of utterly disqualifying a man for the satisfactions and duties of life. Men must be taken as they are, and we neither make them or ourselves better by flying from or quarreling with them.

Edmund Burke

Taken, Men, Understanding

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Born: January 12, 1729
Died: July 9, 1797
Occupation: Statesman
Cite this Page: Citation

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