661 Quotes by Edmund Burke

The great inlet by which a colour for oppression has entered into the world is by one man’s pretending to determine concerning the happiness of another.

Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director, the regulator, the standard of them all. Metaphysics cannot live without definition; but prudence is cautious how she defines. Our courts cannot be more fearful in suffering fictitious cases to be brought before them for eliciting their determination on a point of law, than prudent moralists are in putting extreme and hazardous cases of conscience upon emergencies not existing.

Whenever our neighbour’s house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.

Time is required to produce that union of minds which alone can produce all the good we aim at. Our patience will achieve more than our force.

Those who attempt to level never equalize.

In a free country every man thinks he has a concern in all public matters, – that he has a right to form and a right to deliver an opinion on them. This it is that fills countries with men of ability in all stations.

Now, whatever, either on good or upon bad grounds, tends to raise a man in his own opinion, produces a sort of swelling and triumph, that is extremely grateful to the human mind.

It is the duty of those who claim to rule over others not to provoke them beyond the necessity of the case, nor to leave stings in their minds which must long rankle even when the appearance of tranquillity is restored.

Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found. Liberty inheres in some sensible object; and every nation has formed to itself some favorite point, which by way of eminence becomes the criterion of their happiness.