Edmund Burke Quotes

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty.

Whenever our neighbour’s house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.

You can never plan the future by the past.

He that struggles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.

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

Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference.

It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

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

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.

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.

Falsehood is a perennial spring.

Education is the cheap defense of nations.

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

Tyrants seldom want pretexts.

Free trade is not based on utility but on justice.

By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.