Quotes by Edmund Burke
You can never plan the future by the past.
Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none.
In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.
Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.
We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.
It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.
Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.
He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Laws, like houses, lean on one another.
Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.
All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice.
It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs.
By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.
The most important of all revolutions, a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions.
Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.
Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.
The traveller has reached the end of the journey!
There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.
People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.
To innovate is not to reform.
The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.
