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Nothing, indeed, but the possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man.

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
Nothing
Certainty
Men
Possession
Discover
Indeed
Bottom
True
Power
Character

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What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue!
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Men who undertake considerable things, even in a regular way, ought to give us ground to presume ability.
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An extreme rigor is sure to arm everything against it.
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Never, no never, did Nature say one thing, and wisdom another.
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The poorest being that crawls on earth, contending to save itself from injustice and oppression, is an object respectable in the eyes of God and man.
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Vice incapacitates a man from all public duty it withers the powers of his under- standing, and makes his mind paralytic.
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Gambling is a principle inherent in human nature.
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You had that action and counteraction which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers draws out the harmony of the universe.
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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.
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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.
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Next to love, Sympathy is the divinest passion of the human heart.
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Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.
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It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.
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There is nothing in the world really beneficial that does not lie within the reach of an informed understanding and a well-protected pursuit.
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A thing may look specious in theory, and yet be ruinous in practice a thing may look evil in theory, and yet be in practice excellent.
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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.
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The parties are the gamesters but government keeps the table, and is sure to be the winner in the end.
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The ocean is an object of no small terror.
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Freedom without virtue is not freedom but license to pursue whatever passions prevail in the intemperate mind man's right to freedom being in exact proportion to his willingness to put chains upon his own appetites the less restraint from within, the more must be imposed from without.
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Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
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