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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

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Edmund Burke
Age: 68 †
Born: 1729
Born: January 12
Died: 1797
Died: July 9
Philosopher
Politician
Statesman
Writer
Dublin city
Life
Tree
Sweetest
Alternately
Joy
Joys
Overcast
Pleasure
Hopes
Sharpest
Heaven
Fears
Serene
Pain
Flowers
Thorns
Inspirational
Rose
Sorrows
Sometimes
Sorrow
Composed
Intermingled
Men
Flower
Heavens
Tempestuous

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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Vice incapacitates a man from all public duty it withers the powers of his under- standing, and makes his mind paralytic.
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Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.
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The essence of tyranny is the enforcement of stupid laws.
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Though ugliness be the opposite of beauty, it is not the opposite to proportion and fitness for it is possible that a thing may be very ugly with any proportions, and with a perfect fitness for any use.
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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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There is nothing in the world really beneficial that does not lie within the reach of an informed understanding and a well-protected pursuit.
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A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arises from words.
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I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pain of others
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An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.
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There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.
Edmund Burke
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Continue to instruct the world and - whilst we carry on a poor unequal conflict with the passions and prejudices of our day, perhaps with no better weapons than other passions and prejudices of our own - convey wisdom to future generations.
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But whoever is a genuine follower of Truth, keeps his eye steady upon his guide, indifferent whither he is led, provided that she is the leader.
Edmund Burke
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History consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetite.
Edmund Burke
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Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all.
Edmund Burke
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Power, in whatever hands, is rarely guilty of too strict limitations on itself.
Edmund Burke
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Those who attempt to level never equalize
Edmund Burke
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Pleasure of every kind quickly satisfies.
Edmund Burke
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A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way towards informing us of the nature of the thing defined.
Edmund Burke
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One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.
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It is the nature of tyranny and rapacity never to learn moderation from the ill-success of first oppressions on the contrary, all oppressors, all men thinking highly of the methods dictated by their nature, attribute the frustration of their desires to the want of sufficient rigor.
Edmund Burke