661 Quotes by Edmund Burke

Wars are just to those to whom they are necessary.

Vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.

The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate.

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

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

By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of a summer.

When you fear something, learn as much about it as you can. Knowledge conquers fear.

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

The only infallible criterion of wisdom to vulgar minds - success.