661 Quotes by Edmund Burke

The marketplace obliges men, whether they will or not, in pursuing their own selfish interests, to connect the general good with their own individual success.

Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else; and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear which generates true courage.

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.

Over-taxation cost England her colonies of North America.

One source of the sublime is infinity.

We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.

If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.

He that borrows the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own; he that uses that of a superior elevates his own to the stature of that he contemplates.

Manners are of more importance than laws. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe.