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If any ask me what a free government is, I answer, that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think so,and that they, and not I, are the natural, lawful, and competent judges of this matter.

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
People
Asks
Lawful
Purpose
Competent
Free
Judges
Natural
Practicals
Government
Practical
Matter
Judging
Think
Answer
Thinking
Answers

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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Crimes lead into one another. They who are capable of being forgers, are capable of being incendiaries.
Edmund Burke
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Turn over a new leaf.
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No man can mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity.
Edmund Burke
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The traveller has reached the end of the journey!
Edmund Burke
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It is by sympathy we enter into the concerns of others, that we are moved as they are moved, and are never suffered to be indifferent spectators of almost anything which men can do or suffer. For sympathy may be considered as a sort of substitution, by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in many respects as he is affected.
Edmund Burke
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An entire life of solitude contradicts the purpose of our being, since death itself is scarcely an idea of more terror.
Edmund Burke
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I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.
Edmund Burke
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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
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All that needs to be done for evil to prevail is good men doing nothing.
Edmund Burke
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A nation is not conquered which is perpetually to be conquered.
Edmund Burke
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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
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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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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
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Power, in whatever hands, is rarely guilty of too strict limitations on itself.
Edmund Burke
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I have been told by an eminent bookseller, that in no branch of his business , after tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as those on the law exported to the Plantations .
Edmund Burke
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No men can act with effect who do not act in concert no men can act in concert who do not act with confidence no men can act with confidence who are not bound together with common opinions, common affections, and common interests.
Edmund Burke
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Pleasure of every kind quickly satisfies.
Edmund Burke
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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?
Edmund Burke
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And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.
Edmund Burke
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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.
Edmund Burke