Quote

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants.

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
Humans
Contrivance
Provide
Wants
Wisdom
Government
Human

More quotes by Edmund Burke

Image
The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.
Edmund Burke
Image
It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
Edmund Burke
Image
Gambling is a principle inherent in human nature.
Edmund Burke
Image
A thing may look specious in theory, and yet be ruinous in practice a thing may look evil in theory, and yet be in practice excellent.
Edmund Burke
Image
By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of a summer.
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
Good company, lively conversation, and the endearments of friendship fill the mind with great pleasure.
Edmund Burke
Image
God has sometimes converted wickedness into madness and it is to the credit of human reason that men who are not in some degree mad are never capable of being in the highest degree wicked.
Edmund Burke
Image
An extreme rigor is sure to arm everything against it.
Edmund Burke
Image
All the forces of darkness need to succeed ... is for the people to do nothing.
Edmund Burke
Image
A speculative despair is unpardonable where it our duty to act.
Edmund Burke
Image
Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.
Edmund Burke
Image
A nation is not conquered which is perpetually to be conquered.
Edmund Burke
Image
The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone!
Edmund Burke
Image
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
Image
To govern according to the sense and agreement of the interests of the people is a great and glorious object of governance. This object cannot be obtained but through the medium of popular election, and popular election is a mighty evil.
Edmund Burke
Image
If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.
Edmund Burke
Image
Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling it never forgives preaching of a new gospel.
Edmund Burke
Image
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
Edmund Burke
Image
Wars are just to those to whom they are necessary.
Edmund Burke