Quote

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

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
Judgment
Exalted
Childhood
Receiving
Genius
Romance
Pieces
Degree
Present
Performances
Pleasure
Despair
Contemptible
Felt
Degrees
Trifling
Ever
Regard
Regards

More quotes by Edmund Burke

Image
The nature of things is, I admit, a sturdy adversary.
Edmund Burke
Image
Vice incapacitates a man from all public duty it withers the powers of his under- standing, and makes his mind paralytic.
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
But whoever is a genuine follower of Truth, keeps his eye steady upon his guide, indifferent whither he is led, provided that she is the leader.
Edmund Burke
Image
But a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition, to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution.
Edmund Burke
Image
It is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals that their maxims have a plausible air and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as copper coin and about as valuable.
Edmund Burke
Image
I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pain of others
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
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
Image
Man is by his constitution a religious animal atheism is against not only our reason, but our instincts.
Edmund Burke
Image
By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of a summer.
Edmund Burke
Image
Is it in destroying and pulling down that skill is displayed? The shallowest understanding, the rudest hand, is more than equal to that task.
Edmund Burke
Image
Vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.
Edmund Burke
Image
Old religious factions are volcanoes burned out on the lava and ashes and squalid scoriae of old eruptions grow the peaceful olive, the cheering vine and the sustaining corn.
Edmund Burke
Image
To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
Edmund Burke
Image
Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit, and a series of unconnected arts. Though just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature.
Edmund Burke
Image
Education is the cheap defense of nations.
Edmund Burke
Image
It is known that the taste--whatever it is--is improved exactly as we improve our judgment, by extending our knowledge, by a steady attention to our object, and by frequent exercise.
Edmund Burke
Image
In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature.
Edmund Burke
Image
The only kind of sublimity which a painter or sculptor should aim at is to express by certain proportions and positions of limbs and features that strength and dignity of mind, and vigor and activity of body, which enables men to conceive and execute great actions.
Edmund Burke