Edmund Burke quotes

Edmund Burke was an Irish statesman, philosopher, and writer, renowned for his support of constitutional government and his criticism of the French Revolution. A key figure in 18th-century political thought, he deeply influenced conservatism and parliamentary democracy. He is remembered for his eloquence and commitment to balanced and principled governance. Here are 366 of his quotes:

All the forces of darkness need to succeed ... is for the people to do nothing.

Edmund Burke

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

Edmund Burke

You can never plan the future by the past.

Edmund Burke

The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.

Edmund Burke

Good order is the foundation of all good things.

Edmund Burke

When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.

Edmund Burke

History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.

Edmund Burke

No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

Edmund Burke

It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.

Edmund Burke

Patience will achieve more than force.

Edmund Burke

Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations - wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.

Edmund Burke

Custom reconciles us to everything.

Edmund Burke

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

Edmund Burke

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.

Edmund Burke

There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.

Edmund Burke

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

Edmund Burke

Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions than ruined by too confident a security.

Edmund Burke

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

Edmund Burke

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.

Edmund Burke

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

Edmund Burke

The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.

Edmund Burke

The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.

Edmund Burke