Edmund Burke
Education is a nation's cheapest defenceCollection: Historical
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.Collection: Struggle
One source of the sublime is infinity.Collection: Sublime
My good friends, while I do most earnestly recommend you to take care of your health and safety, as things most precious to us, I would not have that care degenerate into an effeminate and over-curious attention, which is always disgraceful to a man's self, and often troublesome to others.Collection: Good Friend
Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy of superstition.Collection: Freedom
A great empire and little minds go ill together.Collection: Mind
The pride of men will not often suffer reason to have scope until it can be no longer of service.Collection: Pride
The credulity of dupes is as inexhaustible as the invention of knaves.Collection: Knaves
Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all.Collection: Political
Adversity is a severe instructor, set over us by one who knows us better than we do ourselves.Collection: Adversity
Men are as much blinded by the extremes of misery as by the extremes of prosperity.Collection: Men
Great men are never sufficiently shown but in struggles.Collection: Struggle
Obstinacy, sir, is certainly a great vice; and in the changeful state of political affairs it is frequently the cause of great mischief. It happens, however, very unfortunately, that almost the whole line of the great and masculine virtues--constancy, gravity, magnanimity, fortitude, fidelity, and firmness--are closely allied to this disagreeable quality, of which you have so just an abhorrence; and in their excess all these virtues very easily fall into it.Collection: Fall
All writers on the science of policy are agreed, and they agree with experience, that all governments must frequently infringe the rules of justice to support themselves; that truth must give way to dissimulation, honesty to convenience, and humanity itself to the reigning of interest. The whole of this mystery of iniquity is called the reason of state.Collection: Honesty
The great inlet by which a colour for oppression has entered into the world is by one man's pretending to determine concerning the happiness of another.Collection: Power
There is a courageous wisdom; there is also a false, reptile prudence, the result not of caution but of fear.Collection: Courage
Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new compositions, any bungler can add to the old.Collection: Business
Those who attempt to level never equalizeCollection: Levels
Circumspection and caution are part of wisdom.Collection: Life
When a great man has some one object in view to be achieved in a given time, it may be absolutely necessary for him to walk out of all the common roads.Collection: Motivational
Wars are just to those to whom they are necessary.Collection: War
In a free country every man thinks he has a concern in all public matters,--that he has a right to form and a right to deliver an opinion on them. This it is that fills countries with men of ability in all stations.Collection: Country
Nothing, indeed, but the possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man.Collection: Character
We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.Collection: Judging
Who can know her, and himself, and entertain much hope? Who can see and know such a creature, and not love her to distraction? She has all the softness that does not imply weakness... she is not made to be the admiration of everybody, but the happiness of one.Collection: Love
By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little.Collection: Hate
All virtue which is impracticable is spurious.Collection: Virtue
Corrupt influence is itself the perennial spring of all prodigality, and of all disorder; it loads us more than millions of debt; takes away vigor from our arms, wisdom from our councils, and every shadow of authority and credit from the most venerable parts of our constitution.Collection: Spring
The objects of a financier are, then, to secure an ample revenue; to impose it with judgment and equality; to employ it economically; and, when necessity obliges him to make use of credit, to secure its foundations in that instance, and for ever, by the clearness and candor of his proceedings, the exactness of his calculations, and the solidity of his funds.Collection: Money
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.Collection: Agents
The individual is foolish; the multitude, for the moment is foolish, when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise, and, when time is given to it, as a species it always acts right.Collection: Wise
To reach the height of our ambition is like trying to reach the rainbow; as we advance it recedes.Collection: Christian
As mankind becomes more enlightened to know their real interests, they will esteem the value of agriculture; they will find it in their natural--their destined occupation.Collection: Real
Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, skeptical, puzzled and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit; and not a series of unconnected acts. Through past prejudice, his duty becomes part of his nature.Collection: Past
Men who undertake considerable things, even in a regular way, ought to give us ground to presume ability.Collection: Men
Good company, lively conversation, and the endearments of friendship fill the mind with great pleasure.Collection: Friendship
Woman is not made to be the admiration of everybody , but the happiness of one.Collection: Happiness
Too much idleness, I have observed, fills up a man's time more completely and leaves him less his own master, than any sort of employment whatsoeverCollection: Men
A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.Collection: Hate
We begin our public affection in our families. No cold relation is a zealous citizen.Collection: Citizens
The body of all true religion consists, to be sure, in obedience to the will of the Sovereign of the world, in a confidence in His declarations, and in imitation of His perfections.Collection: Perfection
In all forms of government the people is the true legislator.Collection: Government
Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy. If parsimony were to be considered as one of the kinds of that virtue, there is, however, another and a higher economy. Economy is a distinctive virtue, and consists not in saving, but in selection.Collection: Essentials
God has sometimes converted wickedness into madness; and it is to the credit of human reason that men who are not in some degree mad are never capable of being in the highest degree wicked.Collection: Men
The perfection of conversation is not to play a regular sonata, but, like the AEolian harp, to await the inspiration of the passing breeze.Collection: Inspiration
The distinguishing part of our constitution is its liberty. To preserve that liberty inviolate, is the peculiar duty and proper trust of a member of the house of commons. But the liberty, the only liberty I mean, is a liberty connected with order, and that not only exists with order and virtue, but cannot exist at all without them. It inheres in good and steady government, as in its substance and vital principle.Collection: Order
There is a boundary to men’s passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.Collection: Creativity
I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pain of others.Collection: Real
As mankind becomes more enlightened to know their real interests, they will esteem the value of agriculture; they will find it in their natural – their destined occupation.Collection: Real