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A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.

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
Together
Preserves
Would
Standard
Improve
Standards
Statesmanship
Politician
Statesman
Politics
Statesmen
Taken
Disposition
Ability
Preserve

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Good company, lively conversation, and the endearments of friendship fill the mind with great pleasure.
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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.
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The greatest crimes do not arise from a want of feeling for others but from an over-sensibilit y for ourselves and an over-indulgence to our own desires
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No government ought to exist for the purpose of checking the prosperity of its people or to allow such a principle in its policy.
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The question is not whether you have a right to render people miserable, but whether it is not in your best interest to make them happy.
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When you fear something, learn as much about it as you can. Knowledge conquers fear.
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Genuine simplicity of heart is a healing and cementing principle.
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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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Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy. If parsimony were to be considered as one of the kinds of that virtue, there is, however, another and a higher economy. Economy is a distinctive virtue, and consists not in saving, but in selection.
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One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.
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Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.
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It is better to cherish virtue and humanity, by leaving much to free will, even with some loss of the object , than to attempt to make men mere machines and instruments of political benevolence. The world on the whole will gain by a liberty, without which virtue cannot exist.
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If any ask me what a free government is, I answer, that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think so,and that they, and not I, are the natural, lawful, and competent judges of this matter.
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Liberty, without wisdom, is license.
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Dogs are indeed the most social, affectionate, and amiable animals of the whole brute creation.
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Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
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Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures.
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The great difference between the real leader and the pretender is that the one sees into the future, while the other regards only the present the one lives by the day, and acts upon expediency the other acts on enduring principles and for the immortality.
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Nothing is so rash as fear and the counsels of pusillanimity very rarely put off, whilst they are always sure to aggravate, the evils from which they would fly.
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Refined policy ever has been the parent of confusion, and ever will be so as long as the world endures. Plain good intention, which is as easily discovered at the first view as fraud is surely detected at last, is of no mean force in the government of mankind.
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