661 Quotes by Edmund Burke

Where two motives, neither of them perfectly justifiable, may be assigned, the worst has the chance of being preferred.

You had that action and counteraction which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers draws out the harmony of the universe.

Many of the greatest tyrants on the records of history have begun their reigns in the fairest manner. But the truth is, this unnatural power corrupts both the heart and the understanding.

Circumspection and caution are part of wisdom.

When a great man has some one object in view to be achieved in a given time, it may be absolutely necessary for him to walk out of all the common roads.

Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy of superstition.

Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.

Not men but measures a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honorable engagement.

By hating vices too much, they come to love men too little.