661 Quotes by Edmund Burke

What is liberty without...virtue? It is...madness, without restraint.Men are qualified for liberty in exact proportion to their dispositionto put moral chains upon their own appetites.

The conduct of a losing party never appears right: at least it never can possess the only infallible criterion of wisdom to vulgar judgements-success.

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.

And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.

The introduction of Christianity, which, under whatever form, always confers such inestimable benefits on mankind, soon made a sensible change in these rude and fierce manners.

Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than be ruined by too confident a security

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.

If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.

No man can mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity.