65 Quotes By Edmund Burke


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

Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.
Edmund Burke on great

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 on great

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

Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.
Edmund Burke on great

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom and a great empire and little minds go ill together.
Edmund Burke on great

Beauty is the promise of happiness.
Edmund Burke on happiness

If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.
Edmund Burke on health

Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.
Edmund Burke on history

People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.
Edmund Burke on hope

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 on imagination

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

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

Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations - wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.
Edmund Burke on men

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 on men

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

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

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

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 on nature

It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.
Edmund Burke on nature