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The wisdom of our ancestors.

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
Ancestors
Ancestor
Wisdom

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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Religion is for the man in humble life, and to raise his nature, and to put him in mind of a state in which the privileges of opulence will cease, when he will be equal by nature, and may be more than equal by virtue.
Edmund Burke
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I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong. They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries and in this. But I do say that in all disputes between them and their rulers, the presumption is at least upon a par in favour of the people.
Edmund Burke
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A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.
Edmund Burke
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Unsociable humors are contracted in solitude, which will, in the end, not fail of corrupting the understanding as well as the manners, and of utterly disqualifying a man for the satisfactions and duties of life. Men must be taken as they are, and we neither make them or ourselves better by flying from or quarreling with them.
Edmund Burke
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Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy. If parsimony were to be considered as one of the kinds of that virtue, there is, however, another and a higher economy. Economy is a distinctive virtue, and consists not in saving, but in selection.
Edmund Burke
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The person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon him he indulges it, he loves it but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time.
Edmund Burke
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England and Ireland may flourish together. The world is large enough for both of us. Let it be our care not to make ourselves too little for it.
Edmund Burke
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Adversity is a severe instructor, set over us by one who knows us better than we do ourselves.
Edmund Burke
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All the forces of darkness need to succeed ... is for the people to do nothing.
Edmund Burke
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In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind.
Edmund Burke
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Nothing, indeed, but the possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man.
Edmund Burke
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Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations - wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.
Edmund Burke
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As the rose-tree is composed of the sweetest flowers and the sharpest thorns, as the heavens are sometimes overcast—alternately tempestuous and serene—so is the life of man intermingled with hopes and fears, with joys and sorrows, with pleasure and pain.
Edmund Burke
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If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.
Edmund Burke
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There are three estates in Parliament but in the Reporters' Gallery yonder there sits a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech or witty saying, it is a literal fact, very momentous to us in these times.
Edmund Burke
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Our manners, our civilization, and all the good things connected with manners and civilization, have, in this European world of ours, depended for ages upon two principles: I mean the spirit of a gentleman, and the spirit of religion.
Edmund Burke
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Those who quit their proper character to assume what does not belong to them are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave and of the character they assume.
Edmund Burke
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Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit, and a series of unconnected arts. Though just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature.
Edmund Burke
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He that accuses all mankind of corruption ought to remember that he is sure to convict only one.
Edmund Burke
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Somebody has said, that a king may make a nobleman but he cannot make a gentleman.
Edmund Burke