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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
Indeed
Bottom
True
Power
Character
Nothing
Certainty
Men
Possession
Discover

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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A nation is not conquered which is perpetually to be conquered.
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Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.
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Humanity cannot be degraded by humiliation.
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Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant.
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Ambition can creep as well as soar.
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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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Teach me, O lark! with thee to greatly rise, to exalt my soul and lift it to the skies.
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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.
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In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind.
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Custom reconciles us to everything.
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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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Somebody has said, that a king may make a nobleman but he cannot make a gentleman.
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The march of the human mind is slow.
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Unsociable humors are contracted in solitude, which will, in the end, not fail of corrupting the understanding as well as the manners, and of utterly disqualifying a man for the satisfactions and duties of life. Men must be taken as they are, and we neither make them or ourselves better by flying from or quarreling with them.
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Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.
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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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No government ought to exist for the purpose of checking the prosperity of its people or to allow such a principle in its policy.
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Our manners, our civilization, and all the good things connected with manners and civilization, have, in this European world of ours, depended for ages upon two principles: I mean the spirit of a gentleman, and the spirit of religion.
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Not men but measures a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honorable engagement.
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To govern according to the sense and agreement of the interests of the people is a great and glorious object of governance. This object cannot be obtained but through the medium of popular election, and popular election is a mighty evil.
Edmund Burke