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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
True
Power
Character
Certainty
Nothing
Possession
Men
Discover
Indeed
Bottom

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Guilt was never a rational thing it distorts all the faculties of the human mind, it perverts them, it leaves a man no longer in the free use of his reason, it puts him into confusion.
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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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The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear.
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A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
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If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.
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In a free country every man thinks he has a concern in all public matters,--that he has a right to form and a right to deliver an opinion on them. This it is that fills countries with men of ability in all stations.
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Refined policy ever has been the parent of confusion, and ever will be so as long as the world endures. Plain good intention, which is as easily discovered at the first view as fraud is surely detected at last, is of no mean force in the government of mankind.
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Spain: A whale stranded upon the coast of Europe.
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To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
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The whole compass of the language is tried to find sinonimies [synonyms] and circumlocutions for massacres and murder. Things never called by their common names. Massacre is sometimes called agitation, sometimes effervescence, sometimes excess sometimes too continued an exercise of revolutionary power.
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Dogs are indeed the most social, affectionate, and amiable animals of the whole brute creation.
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The great Error of our Nature is, not to know where to stop, not to be satisfied with any reasonable Acquirement not to compound with our Condition but to lose all we have gained by an insatiable Pursuit after more.
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No man can mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity.
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Humanity cannot be degraded by humiliation.
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It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.
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Delusion and weakness produce not one mischief the less, because they are universal.
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Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations - wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.
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He that accuses all mankind of corruption ought to remember that he is sure to convict only one.
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Religion is among the most powerful causes of enthusiasm.
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Party is a body of men united, for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed.
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