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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

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Edmund Burke
Age: 68 †
Born: 1729
Born: January 12
Died: 1797
Died: July 9
Philosopher
Politician
Statesman
Writer
Dublin city
Folly
Evil
Vices
Without
Madness
Greatest
Tuition
Virtue
Evils
Liberty
Restraint
Wisdom
Vice
Possible

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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Liberty, without wisdom, is license.
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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.
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Contempt is not a thing to be despised. It may be borne with a calm and equal mind, but no man, by lifting his head high, can pretend that he does not perceive the scorns that are poured down on him from above.
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Education is the cheap defense of nations.
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Nothing, indeed, but the possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man.
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Teach me, O lark! with thee to greatly rise, to exalt my soul and lift it to the skies.
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A nation without means of reform is without means of survival.
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All virtue which is impracticable is spurious.
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To be struck with His power, it is only necessary to open our eyes.
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I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche, upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases.
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I have been told by an eminent bookseller, that in no branch of his business , after tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as those on the law exported to the Plantations .
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To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.
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The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate.
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There are circumstances in which despair does not imply inactivity.
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Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant.
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To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
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Pleasure of every kind quickly satisfies.
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There is a wide difference between admiration and love. The sublime, which is the cause of the former, always dwells on great objects and terrible the latter on small ones and pleasing we submit to what we admire, but we love what submits to us: in one case we are forced, in the other, we are flattered, into compliance.
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I take toleration to be a part of religion. I do not know which I would sacrifice I would keep them both: it is not necessary that I should sacrifice either.
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They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.
Edmund Burke