Quote

A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way towards informing us of the nature of the thing defined.

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
Nature
Littles
May
Informing
Little
Exact
Thing
Definition
Way
Definitions
Defined
Towards

More quotes by Edmund Burke

Image
All virtue which is impracticable is spurious.
Edmund Burke
Image
Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.
Edmund Burke
Image
The most favourable laws can do very little towards the happiness of people when the disposition of the ruling power is adverse to them.
Edmund Burke
Image
Good order is the foundation of all things.
Edmund Burke
Image
I decline the election. It has ever been my rule through life, to observe a proportion between my efforts and my objects. I have never been remarkable for a bold, active, and sanguine pursuit of advantages that are personal to myself.
Edmund Burke
Image
In all forms of government the people is the true legislator.
Edmund Burke
Image
Curiosity is the most superficial of all the affections it changes its object perpetually it has an appetite which is very sharp, but very easily satisfied, and it has always an appearance of giddiness, restlessness and anxiety.
Edmund Burke
Image
I despair of ever receiving the same degree of pleasure from the most exalted performances of genius which I felt in childhood from pieces which my present judgment regards as trifling and contemptible.
Edmund Burke
Image
To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
Edmund Burke
Image
Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
Edmund Burke
Image
True humility-the basis of the Christian system-is the low but deep and firm foundation of all virtues.
Edmund Burke
Image
The superfluities of a rich nation furnish a better object of trade than the necessities of a poor one. It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere.
Edmund Burke
Image
But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
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
There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.
Edmund Burke
Image
He that borrows the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own he that uses that of a superior elevates his own to the stature of that he contemplates.
Edmund Burke
Image
Make the Revolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery of future revolutions.
Edmund Burke
Image
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
Image
To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
Edmund Burke
Image
In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.
Edmund Burke