Quote

The great Error of our Nature is, not to know where to stop, not to be satisfied with any reasonable Acquirement not to compound with our Condition but to lose all we have gained by an insatiable Pursuit after more.

Edmund Burke

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Edmund Burke
Age: 68 †
Born: 1729
Born: January 12
Died: 1797
Died: July 9
Philosopher
Politician
Statesman
Writer
Dublin city
Stop
Condition
Nature
Pursuit
Acquirement
Great
Errors
Compound
Satisfied
Insatiable
Conservative
Compounds
Conditions
Gained
Lose
Error
Loses
Reasonable

More quotes by Edmund Burke

Image
If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived.
Edmund Burke
Image
Adversity is a severe instructor, set over us by one who knows us better than we do ourselves.
Edmund Burke
Image
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
Image
Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new compositions, any bungler can add to the old.
Edmund Burke
Image
Education is the cheap defense of nations.
Edmund Burke
Image
Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.
Edmund Burke
Image
The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.
Edmund Burke
Image
Over-taxation cost England her colonies of North America.
Edmund Burke
Image
History consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetite.
Edmund Burke
Image
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
Image
To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.
Edmund Burke
Image
Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.
Edmund Burke
Image
The ocean is an object of no small terror.
Edmund Burke
Image
For my part, I am convinced that the method of teaching which approaches most nearly to the method of investigation is incomparably the best since, not content with serving up a few barren and lifeless truths, it leads to the stock on which they grew.
Edmund Burke
Image
Oppression makes wise men mad but the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which is better than the sobriety of fools.
Edmund Burke
Image
It may be observed, that very polished languages, and such as are praised for their superior clearness and perspicuity, are generally deficient in strength.
Edmund Burke
Image
The nerve that never relaxes, the eye that never blanches, the thought that never wanders, the purpose that never wavers - these are the masters of victory.
Edmund Burke
Image
It is the function of a judge not to make but to declare the law, according to the golden mete-wand of the law and not by the crooked cord of discretion.
Edmund Burke
Image
Men love to hear of their power, but have an extreme disrelish to be told their duty.
Edmund Burke
Image
The true way to mourn the dead is to take care of the living who belong to them.
Edmund Burke