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Edmund Burke Biography

Edmund Burke (/bɜːrk/; 12 January [NS] 1730 – 9 July 1797) was an Irish statesman born in Dublin, as well as an author, orator, political theorist and philosopher, who after moving to London in 1750 served as a member of parliament (MP) between 1766 and 1794 in the House of Commons with the Whig Party.

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Edmund Burke Quotes

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

Encouragement, Life, Mistake, Nobody, Nothing, Time

The great difference between the real leader and the pretender is that the one sees into the future, while the other regards only the present; the one lives by the day, and acts upon expediency; the other acts on enduring principles and for the immortality.

Differences, Leadership, Present, Real, Sees

I cannot stand forward, and give praise or blame to any thing which relates to human actions, and human concerns, on a simple view of the subject as it stands stripped of every relation, in all the nakedness and solitude of metaphysical abstraction. Circumstances (which with some gentlemen pass for nothing) give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour, and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind.

Simple, Reality, Views, Stand, Distinguishing

There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.

Boundary, Creativity, Feelings, Imagination, Passion, Peace

Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all.

Directors, Firsts, Moral, Political, Prudence, Rank

Dogs are indeed the most social, affectionate, and amiable animals of the whole brute creation.

Animal, Brute, Creation, Dog, Social, Whole

When slavery is established in any part of the world, those who are free are by far the most proud and jealous of their freedom.

Established, Freedom, History, Jealous, World

To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind.

Age, Complaining, Greatest, Hopes, Murmur, Past

A good parson once said that where mystery begins religion ends. Cannot I say, as truly at least, of human laws, that where mystery begins justice ends?

Investing, Justice, Law, Laws, Mystery, Parson

In a democracy the majority of citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority. . . and that oppression of the majority will extend to far great number, and will be carried on with much greater fury, than can almost ever be apprehended from the dominion of a single sceptre. Under a cruel prince they have the plaudits of the people to animate their generous constancy under their sufferings; but those who are subjected to wrong under multitudes are deprived of all external consolation: they seem deserted by mankind, overpowered by a conspiracy of their whole species.

Exercise, Numbers, People, Carried, Citizens, Whole

People must be taken as they are, and we should never try make them or ourselves better by quarreling with them.

People, Quarreling, Relationship, Taken

I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard than in the tomb of the Capulets.

Capulets, Corner, Country, Sleep, Southern

Surely the church is a place where one day's truce ought to be allowed to the dissensions and animosities of mankind.

Allowed, Church, Mankind, One Day

Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none.

Compassion, Good, Justice, Tolerance, Toleration

Circumspection and caution are part of wisdom.

Caution, Circumspection, Life, Wisdom

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.

Action, Discordant, Draws, Political, Struggle, World

Society is indeed a contract. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.

Art, Generations, Perfection, Society

I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche, upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases.

Country, Man, May, Men, Nothing, Pitch

When you find me attempting to break into your house to take your plate, under any pretence whatsoever, but most of all under pretence of purity of religion and Christian charity shoot me for a robber and a hypocrite, as in that case I shall certainly be.

Break, Christian, House, Hypocrite, Religion, Shoot

Knowledge of those unalterable Relations which Providence has ordained that every thing should bear to every other. . . To these we should conform in good Earnest; and not think to force Nature, and the whole Order of her System, by a Compliance with our Pride, and Folly, to conform to our artificial Regulations.

Knowledge, Order, Pride, Think, Thinking, Unalterable

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