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The most favourable laws can do very little towards the happiness of people when the disposition of the ruling power is adverse to 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
Littles
Ruling
Little
Disposition
People
Towards
Laws
Law
Happiness
Inspirational
Favourable
Power
Adverse

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History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.
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What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!
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Those who attempt to level never equalize
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The most important of all revolutions, a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions.
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The love of lucre, though sometimes carried to a ridiculous excess, a vicious excess, is the grand cause of prosperity to all States.
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I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard than in the tomb of the Capulets.
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He that accuses all mankind of corruption ought to remember that he is sure to convict only one.
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Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.
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It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
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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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Politics ought to be adjusted not to human reasonings but to human nature, of which reason is but a part and by no means the greatest part.
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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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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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Where two motives, neither of them perfectly justifiable, may be assigned, the worst has the chance of being preferred.
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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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If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.
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Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling it never forgives preaching of a new gospel.
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Spain: A whale stranded upon the coast of Europe.
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It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.
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