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Where two motives, neither of them perfectly justifiable, may be assigned, the worst has the chance of being preferred.

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
May
Motive
Perfectly
Neither
Worst
Politics
Justifiable
Chance
Assigned
Political
Preferred
Two
Motives

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For as wealth is power, so all power will infallibly draw wealth to itself by some means or other and when men are left no way of ascertaining their profits but by their means of obtaining them, those means will be increased to infinity.
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There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.
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One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.
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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.
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Ambition can creep as well as soar.
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The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.
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He that borrows the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own he that uses that of a superior elevates his own to the stature of that he contemplates.
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There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings but none when they are under the influence of imagination.
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But a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition, to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution.
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When you fear something, learn as much about it as you can. Knowledge conquers fear.
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Men have no right to what is not reasonable, and to what is not for their benefit.
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Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all.
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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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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.
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The only kind of sublimity which a painter or sculptor should aim at is to express by certain proportions and positions of limbs and features that strength and dignity of mind, and vigor and activity of body, which enables men to conceive and execute great actions.
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The grand instructor, time.
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That cardinal virtue, temperance.
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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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The cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judgment.
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The moment you abate anything from the full rights of men to each govern himself, and suffer any artificial positive limitation upon those rights, from that moment the whole organization of government becomes a consideration of convenience.
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