Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke
Edmund Burkewas an Irish statesman born in Dublin, as well as an author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher who, after moving to London, served as a member of parliamentfor many years in the House of Commons with the Whig Party...
NationalityIrish
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth12 January 1729
CountryIreland
power government law
People crushed by law, have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much hope and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous.
hands government-welfare scarcity
And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.
men pawns injustice
No man can mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity.
friendship mind good-company
Good company, lively conversation, and the endearments of friendship fill the mind with great pleasure.
law justice mystery
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?
men america envy
There is America, which at this day serves for little more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth manners, yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal to the whole of that commerce which now attracts the envy of the world.
country war blood
In this choice of inheritance we have given to our frame of polity the image of a relation in blood; binding up the constitution of our country with our dearest domestic ties; adopting our fundamental laws into the bosom of our family affections; keeping inseparable and cherishing with the warmth of all their combined and mutually reflected charities, our state, our hearths, our sepulchres, and our altars.
fear reptiles courageous
There is a courageous wisdom; there is also a false, reptile prudence, the result not of caution but of fear.
people bones stills
A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.
drawing people method
I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.
contempt despised
Contempt is not a thing to be despised.
simple reality views
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.
men ability good-service
There never was a bad man that had ability for good service.
liberty abstract found
Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.