Quote

It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.

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
Ordinary
Contest
Public
Contests
Justice
Apply
Ideas
Narrow
Looks
Criminal
Whole
Criminals
Great
Drawing
Pedantic
People
Method
Indictment

More quotes by Edmund Burke

Image
Woman is not made to be the admiration of everybody , but the happiness of one.
Edmund Burke
Image
They [Americans] augur misgovernment at a distance and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.
Edmund Burke
Image
Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power but they will never look to anything but power for their relief.
Edmund Burke
Image
Too much idleness, I have observed, fills up a man's time more completely and leaves him less his own master, than any sort of employment whatsoever
Edmund Burke
Image
Nothing less will content me, than wholeAmerica.
Edmund Burke
Image
A speculative despair is unpardonable where it our duty to act.
Edmund Burke
Image
We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us.
Edmund Burke
Image
People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.
Edmund Burke
Image
No government ought to exist for the purpose of checking the prosperity of its people or to allow such a principle in its policy.
Edmund Burke
Image
For as wealth is power, so all power will infallibly draw wealth to itself by some means or other and when men are left no way of ascertaining their profits but by their means of obtaining them, those means will be increased to infinity.
Edmund Burke
Image
The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.
Edmund Burke
Image
To innovate is not to reform.
Edmund Burke
Image
Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.
Edmund Burke
Image
The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.
Edmund Burke
Image
Not men but measures a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honorable engagement.
Edmund Burke
Image
The very name of a politician, a statesman, is sure to cause terror and hatred it has always connected with it the ideas of treachery, cruelty, fraud, and tyranny.
Edmund Burke
Image
The traveller has reached the end of the journey!
Edmund Burke
Image
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
Image
The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate.
Edmund Burke
Image
Evil prevails when good men fail to act.
Edmund Burke