661 Quotes by Edmund Burke

The moment you abate anything from the full rights of men to each govern himself, and suffer any artificial positive limitation upon those rights, from that moment the whole organization of government becomes a consideration of convenience.

Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.

War is the matter which fills all history; and consequently the only, or almost the only, view in which we can see the external of political society is in a hostile shape: and the only actions to which we have always seen, and still see, all of them intent, are such as tend to the destruction of one another.

There are cases in which a man would be ashamed not to have been imposed upon. There is a confidence necessary to human intercourse, and without which men are often more injured by their own suspicions than they would be by the perfidy of others.

True humility-the basis of the Christian system-is the low but deep and firm foundation of all virtues.

The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

The blood of man should never be shed but to redeem the blood of man. It is well shed for our family, for our friends, for our God, for our country, for our kind. The rest is vanity; the rest is crime.

Oppression makes wise men mad; but the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which is better than the sobriety of fools.

Water is insipid, inodorous, colorless and smooth.