Quote

Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.

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
Less
Appetite
Cannot
Somewhere
Power
Exist
Without
Unless
Must
Liberty
Within
Controlling
Society
Placed
Upon
Virtuous

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A speculative despair is unpardonable where it our duty to act.
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Turbulent, discontented men of quality, in proportion as they are puffed up with personal pride and arrogance, generally despise their own order.
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To execute laws is a royal office to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust.
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Some degree of novelty must be one of the materials in almost every instrument which works upon the mind and curiosity blends itself, more or less, with all our pleasures.
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Law and arbitrary power are at eternal enmity.
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The people of England well know that the idea of inheritance furnishes a sure principle of conservation and a sure principle of transmission, without at all excluding a principle of improvement.
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It has all the contortions of the sibyl without the inspiration.
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Spain: A whale stranded upon the coast of Europe.
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Between craft and credulity, the voice of reason is stifled.
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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.
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All the forces of darkness need to succeed ... is for the people to do nothing.
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War is the matter which fills all history and consequently the only, or almost the only, view in which we can see the external of political society is in a hostile shape: and the only actions to which we have always seen, and still see, all of them intent, are such as tend to the destruction of one another.
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Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.
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Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.
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Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.
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Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new impositions any bungler can add to the old but is it altogether wise to have no other bounds to your impositions than the patience of those who are to bear them?
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Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.
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All that needs to be done for evil to prevail is good men doing nothing.
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Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.
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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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