Quote

The question is not whether you have a right to render people miserable, but whether it is not in your best interest to make them happy.

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
Best
Right
Make
Render
People
Miserable
Question
Interest
Whether
Happy

More quotes by Edmund Burke

Image
An entire life of solitude contradicts the purpose of our being, since death itself is scarcely an idea of more terror.
Edmund Burke
Image
Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.
Edmund Burke
Image
The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.
Edmund Burke
Image
The conduct of a losing party never appears right: at least it never can possess the only infallible criterion of wisdom to vulgar judgements-success.
Edmund Burke
Image
They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.
Edmund Burke
Image
Dogs are indeed the most social, affectionate, and amiable animals of the whole brute creation.
Edmund Burke
Image
There ought to be system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
Edmund Burke
Image
Men have no right to what is not reasonable, and to what is not for their benefit.
Edmund Burke
Image
Custom reconciles us to everything.
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
Contempt is not a thing to be despised.
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
The people of England well know that the idea of inheritance furnishes a sure principle of conservation and a sure principle of transmission, without at all excluding a principle of improvement.
Edmund Burke
Image
All virtue which is impracticable is spurious.
Edmund Burke
Image
History consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetite.
Edmund Burke
Image
Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young peoples, and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation.
Edmund Burke
Image
There are three estates in Parliament but in the Reporters' Gallery yonder there sits a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech or witty saying, it is a literal fact, very momentous to us in these times.
Edmund Burke
Image
The grand instructor, time.
Edmund Burke
Image
To innovate is not to reform.
Edmund Burke
Image
To give freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to guide it only requires to let go the rein. But to form a free government that is, to temper together these opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one work, requires much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and combining mind.
Edmund Burke