Edmund Burke Quotes

History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.

Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.

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.

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

To innovate is not to reform.

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.

We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.

Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives preaching of a new gospel.

What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.

Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.

Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.

Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.

Adversity is a severe instructor, set over us by one who knows us better than we do ourselves.

Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.

Beauty is the promise of happiness.

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