Quote

It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.

Edmund Burke

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Edmund Burke
Age: 68 †
Born: 1729
Born: January 12
Died: 1797
Died: July 9
Philosopher
Politician
Statesman
Writer
Dublin city
Cannot
Ordained
Character
Virtuous
Mind
Passions
Things
Minds
Men
Constitution
Eternal
Intemperate
Passion
Forge
Free
Fetters

More quotes by Edmund Burke

Image
True humility-the basis of the Christian system-is the low but deep and firm foundation of all virtues.
Edmund Burke
Image
As the rose-tree is composed of the sweetest flowers and the sharpest thorns, as the heavens are sometimes overcast—alternately tempestuous and serene—so is the life of man intermingled with hopes and fears, with joys and sorrows, with pleasure and pain.
Edmund Burke
Image
Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.
Edmund Burke
Image
Where two motives, neither of them perfectly justifiable, may be assigned, the worst has the chance of being preferred.
Edmund Burke
Image
For there is in mankind an unfortunate propensity to make themselves, their views and their works, the measure of excellence in every thing whatsoever
Edmund Burke
Image
A speculative despair is unpardonable where it our duty to act.
Edmund Burke
Image
The cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judgment.
Edmund Burke
Image
Good company, lively conversation, and the endearments of friendship fill the mind with great pleasure.
Edmund Burke
Image
To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind.
Edmund Burke
Image
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.
Edmund Burke
Image
I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard than in the tomb of the Capulets.
Edmund Burke
Image
Oppression makes wise men mad but the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which is better than the sobriety of fools.
Edmund Burke
Image
Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young peoples, and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation.
Edmund Burke
Image
Men have no right to put the well-being of the present generation wholly out of the question. Perhaps the only moral trust with any certainty in our hands is the care of our own time.
Edmund Burke
Image
A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
Edmund Burke
Image
It is by sympathy we enter into the concerns of others, that we are moved as they are moved, and are never suffered to be indifferent spectators of almost anything which men can do or suffer. For sympathy may be considered as a sort of substitution, by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in many respects as he is affected.
Edmund Burke
Image
Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.
Edmund Burke
Image
I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong. They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries and in this. But I do say that in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people.
Edmund Burke
Image
Men love to hear of their power, but have an extreme disrelish to be told their duty.
Edmund Burke
Image
For as wealth is power, so all power will infallibly draw wealth to itself by some means or other and when men are left no way of ascertaining their profits but by their means of obtaining them, those means will be increased to infinity.
Edmund Burke