Quote

Government is the exercise of all the great qualities of the human mind.

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
Human
Humans
Great
Mind
Qualities
Exercise
Quality
Government

More quotes by Edmund Burke

Image
To execute laws is a royal office to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust.
Edmund Burke
Image
It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs.
Edmund Burke
Image
Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.
Edmund Burke
Image
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
Image
It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.
Edmund Burke
Image
A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way towards informing us of the nature of the thing defined.
Edmund Burke
Image
Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.
Edmund Burke
Image
Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants.
Edmund Burke
Image
Public calamity is a mighty leveller.
Edmund Burke
Image
No government ought to exist for the purpose of checking the prosperity of its people or to allow such a principle in its policy.
Edmund Burke
Image
The religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principles of resistance: it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion.
Edmund Burke
Image
Some degree of novelty must be one of the materials in almost every instrument which works upon the mind and curiosity blends itself, more or less, with all our pleasures.
Edmund Burke
Image
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.
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
Image
But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
Edmund Burke
Image
Nnothing tends more to the corruption of science than to suffer it to stagnate. These waters must be troubled, before they can exert their virtues.
Edmund Burke
Image
The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.
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
It is for the most part in our skill in manners, and in the observations of time and place and of decency in general, that what is called taste by way of distinction consists and which is in reality no other than a more refined judgment.
Edmund Burke
Image
Between craft and credulity, the voice of reason is stifled.
Edmund Burke