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And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.

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
Looked
Turn
Hand
Turns
Scarcity
Hands
Bite
Government
Feds
Firsts
Bites
First
Bread

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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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It is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals that their maxims have a plausible air and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as copper coin and about as valuable.
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There are three estates in Parliament but in the Reporters' Gallery yonder there sits a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech or witty saying, it is a literal fact, very momentous to us in these times.
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When you find me attempting to break into your house to take your plate, under any pretence whatsoever, but most of all under pretence of purity of religion and Christian charity shoot me for a robber and a hypocrite, as in that case I shall certainly be.
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Teach me, O lark! with thee to greatly rise, to exalt my soul and lift it to the skies.
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What is it we all seek for in an election? To answer its real purposes, you must first possess the means of knowing the fitness of your man and then you must retain some hold upon him by personal obligation or dependence.
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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.
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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.
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Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.
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Unsociable humors are contracted in solitude, which will, in the end, not fail of corrupting the understanding as well as the manners, and of utterly disqualifying a man for the satisfactions and duties of life. Men must be taken as they are, and we neither make them or ourselves better by flying from or quarreling with them.
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The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.
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Nothing, indeed, but the possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man.
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Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.
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It is the love of the people it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army 168 and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience, without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber.
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I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche, upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases.
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The marketplace obliges men, whether they will or not, in pursuing their own selfish interests, to connect the general good with their own individual success.
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All virtue which is impracticable is spurious.
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It may be observed, that very polished languages, and such as are praised for their superior clearness and perspicuity, are generally deficient in strength.
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The parties are the gamesters but government keeps the table, and is sure to be the winner in the end.
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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.
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