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Tyrants seldom want pretexts.

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
Pretexts
Pretext
Antiwar
Tyrants
Seldom
Peace
War

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind.
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The ocean is an object of no small terror.
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Good company, lively conversation, and the endearments of friendship fill the mind with great pleasure.
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An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.
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The wisdom of our ancestors.
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It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere.
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To execute laws is a royal office to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust.
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Hypocrisy is no cheap vice nor can our natural temper be masked for many years together.
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Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.
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Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all it combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. In this partnership all men have equal rights but not to equal things.
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Fellowship in treason is a bad ground of confidence.
Edmund Burke
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If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived.
Edmund Burke
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Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.
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England and Ireland may flourish together. The world is large enough for both of us. Let it be our care not to make ourselves too little for it.
Edmund Burke
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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 .
Edmund Burke
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Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.
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Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.
Edmund Burke
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A good parson once said that where mystery begins religion ends. Cannot I say, as truly at least, of human laws, that where mystery begins justice ends?
Edmund Burke
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Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new impositions any bungler can add to the old but is it altogether wise to have no other bounds to your impositions than the patience of those who are to bear them?
Edmund Burke
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Man is an animal that cooks his victuals.
Edmund Burke