661 Quotes by Edmund Burke

Neither the few nor the many have a right to act merely by their will, in any matter connected with duty, trust, engagement, or obligation.

It is very rare, indeed, for men to be wrong in their feelings concerning public misconduct; as rare to be right in their speculations upon the cause of it. I have constantly observed that the generality of people are fifty years, at least, behind in their politics.

Those who have been intoxicated with power... can never willingly abandon it.

I decline the election. It has ever been my rule through life, to observe a proportion between my efforts and my objects. I have never been remarkable for a bold, active, and sanguine pursuit of advantages that are personal to myself.

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

Man is an animal that cooks his victuals.

You will smile here at the consistency of those democratists who, when they are not on their guard, treat the humbler part of the community with the greatest contempt, whilst, at the same time they pretend to make them the depositories of all power.

Somebody has said, that a king may make a nobleman but he cannot make a gentleman.

To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.