Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
Where two motives, neither of them perfectly justifiable, may be assigned, the worst has the chance of being preferred.
Edmund Burke
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Edmund Burke
Age: 68 †
Born: 1729
Born: January 12
Died: 1797
Died: July 9
Philosopher
Politician
Statesman
Writer
Dublin city
Perfectly
Neither
Worst
Politics
Justifiable
Chance
Assigned
Political
Preferred
Two
Motives
May
Motive
More quotes by Edmund Burke
Never, no never, did Nature say one thing, and wisdom another.
Edmund Burke
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
I despair of ever receiving the same degree of pleasure from the most exalted performances of genius which I felt in childhood from pieces which my present judgment regards as trifling and contemptible.
Edmund Burke
No government ought to exist for the purpose of checking the prosperity of its people or to allow such a principle in its policy.
Edmund Burke
But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
Edmund Burke
A man is allowed sufficient freedom of thought, provided he knows how to choose his subject properly.... But the scene is changed as you come homeward, and atheism or treason may be the names given in Britain to what would be reason and truth if asserted in China.
Edmund Burke
It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.
Edmund Burke
Men have no right to put the well-being of the present generation wholly out of the question. Perhaps the only moral trust with any certainty in our hands is the care of our own time.
Edmund Burke
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
The wisdom of our ancestors.
Edmund Burke
Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.
Edmund Burke
The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.
Edmund Burke
A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
Edmund Burke
Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all it combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. In this partnership all men have equal rights but not to equal things.
Edmund Burke
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
The true way to mourn the dead is to take care of the living who belong to them.
Edmund Burke
When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators the instruments, not the guides, of the people.
Edmund Burke
What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!
Edmund Burke
It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere.
Edmund Burke
That cardinal virtue, temperance.
Edmund Burke
