Quote

To execute laws is a royal office to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust.

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
Law
King
Though
Merely
Political
Kings
Execute
Order
Laws
Orders
Great
However
Executive
Office
Royal
Trust
Execution
Politics
Executives

More quotes by Edmund Burke

Image
War is the matter which fills all history and consequently the only, or almost the only, view in which we can see the external of political society is in a hostile shape: and the only actions to which we have always seen, and still see, all of them intent, are such as tend to the destruction of one another.
Edmund Burke
Image
Gambling is a principle inherent in human nature.
Edmund Burke
Image
A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.
Edmund Burke
Image
Ambition can creep as well as soar.
Edmund Burke
Image
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
Image
Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants.
Edmund Burke
Image
Wars are just to those to whom they are necessary.
Edmund Burke
Image
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
Image
As mankind becomes more enlightened to know their real interests, they will esteem the value of agriculture they will find it in their natural--their destined occupation.
Edmund Burke
Image
There was an ancient Roman lawyer, of great fame in the history of Roman jurisprudence, whom they called Cui Bono, from his having first introduced into judicial proceedings the argument, What end or object could the party have had in the act with which he is accused.
Edmund Burke
Image
An entire life of solitude contradicts the purpose of our being, since death itself is scarcely an idea of more terror.
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
We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us.
Edmund Burke
Image
Custom reconciles us to everything.
Edmund Burke
Image
It is undoubtedly true, though it may seem paradoxical,--but, in general, those who are habitually employed in finding and displaying faults are unqualified for the work of reformation.
Edmund Burke
Image
Nnothing tends more to the corruption of science than to suffer it to stagnate. These waters must be troubled, before they can exert their virtues.
Edmund Burke
Image
Hypocrisy is no cheap vice nor can our natural temper be masked for many years together.
Edmund Burke
Image
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
Image
To innovate is not to reform.
Edmund Burke
Image
The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
Edmund Burke