Quote

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.

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
Laws
Uniforms
Vex
Constant
Corrupt
Exalt
Air
Operation
Soothe
Law
Steady
Refine
Like
Operations
Insensible
Manners
Purify
Breathe
Uniform
Importance
Courtesy
Debase

More quotes by Edmund Burke

Image
The grand instructor, time.
Edmund Burke
Image
He had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame a passion which is the instinct of all great souls.
Edmund Burke
Image
Genuine simplicity of heart is a healing and cementing principle.
Edmund Burke
Image
There ought to be system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
Edmund Burke
Image
As mankind becomes more enlightened to know their real interests, they will esteem the value of agriculture they will find it in their natural--their destined occupation.
Edmund Burke
Image
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
Edmund Burke
Image
To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to deprecate the value of freedom itself.
Edmund Burke
Image
Party is a body of men united, for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed.
Edmund Burke
Image
Men love to hear of their power, but have an extreme disrelish to be told their duty.
Edmund Burke
Image
The person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon him he indulges it, he loves it but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time.
Edmund Burke
Image
Politics ought to be adjusted not to human reasonings but to human nature, of which reason is but a part and by no means the greatest part.
Edmund Burke
Image
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.
Edmund Burke
Image
Power, in whatever hands, is rarely guilty of too strict limitations on itself.
Edmund Burke
Image
Man is an animal that cooks his victuals.
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
Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.
Edmund Burke
Image
The esteem of wise and good men is the greatest of all temporal encouragements to virtue and it is a mark of an abandoned spirit to have no regard to it.
Edmund Burke
Image
He was not merely a chip off the old block, but the old block itself.
Edmund Burke
Image
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.
Edmund Burke
Image
Among precautions against ambition, it may not be amiss to take precautions against our own. I must fairly say, I dread our own power and our own ambition: I dread our being too much dreaded.
Edmund Burke