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
block tree chips
He was not merely a chip off the old block, but the old block itself.
learning casts multitudes
Learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.
christian healing voice
No sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity.
wise business bears
Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new impositions; any bungler can add to the old; but is it altogether wise to have no other bounds to your impositions than the patience of those who are to bear them?
summer art army
In on summer they have done their business... they have completely pulled down to the ground their monarchy, their church, their nobility, their law, their revenue, their army, their navy, their commerce, their arts, and their manufactures... destroyed all balances and counterpoises which serve to fix a state and give it steady direction, and then they melted down the whole into one incongrous mass of mob and democracy... the people, along with their political servitude, have thrown off the yoke of law and morals.
country war passion
We are in a war of a peculiar nature. It is not with an ordinary community, which is hostile or friendly as passion or as interest may veer about: not with a state which makes war through wantonness, and abandons it through lassitude. We are at war with a system, which by its essence, is inimical to all other governments, and which makes peace or war, as peace and war may best contribute to their subversion. It is with an armed doctrine that we are at war. It has, by its essence, a faction of opinion, and of interest, and of enthusiasm, in every country.
eye thinking yield
Reflect how you are to govern a people who think they ought to be free, and think they are not. Your scheme yields no revenue; it yields nothing but discontent, disorder, disobedience; and such is the state of America, that after wading through up to your eyes in blood, you could only end up where you begun; that is, to tax where no revenue is to be found... all is confusion beyond it.
injustice ministers fraud
Fraud is the ready minister of injustice.
truth imagination lag
Fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and barren.
fate men evil
The Fate of good men who refuse to become involved in politics is to be ruled by evil men.
strong light air
My hold of the colonies is in the close affection which grows from common names, from kindred blood, from similar privileges, and equal protection. These are ties which, though light as air, are as strong as links of iron.
country sleep southern
I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard than in the tomb of the Capulets.
mean survival reform
A nation without means of reform is without means of survival.
feelings desire want
The greatest crimes do not arise from a want of feeling for others but from an over-sensibilit y for ourselves and an over-indulgence to our own desires