55 Famous Sir Edmund Burke Quotes and Sayings

Here we are sharing with you Sir Edmund Burke Quotes. These quotes may have been written 200 years ago but the meaning behind these words is still resonated today.

Edmund Burke was born on 12 January 1729 in Dublin, was an Irish statesman and philosopher. Burke went to London in 1750 to study law but gave up and pursued a literary and political career.  He became a member of the parliament in 1765 and served as a member of parliament (MP) between 1766 and 1794 in the House of Commons of Great Britain with the Whig Party.

Sir Edmund Burke images and wallpaper

He was praised by both conservatives and liberals and he also believed that the government should be a cooperative relationship between rulers and subjects. Burke believed that most men in the nation are not qualified to serve, phrasing that the men who are elected to represent the people should wise than the public itself.

Burke believed that the past is important, but the change is inevitable so in order to maintain the balance between them, society needs to learn how to adapt. So We should create the nation by valuing our ancestors but also consider ourselves and the needs of future generations.

One of the most valued Sir Edmund Burke‘s work is Reflections on the Revolution in France, a book that become a huge success.

Here is our collection of Edmund Burke quotes on Liberty, Power, and Virtue that still resonate today.

Sir Edmund Burke Quotes

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
― Edmund Burke

“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.”
― Edmund Burke

“Woman is not made to be the admiration of all, but the happiness of one.”
― Edmund Burke

“Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.”
― Edmund Burke

“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
― Edmund Burke

Sir Edmund Burke Quotes and Sayings

“Ambition can creep as well as soar.”
― Edmund Burke

“Rudeness is the weak man’s imitation of strength.”
― Edmund Burke

“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. Those who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths.”
― Edmund Burke

“Our patience will achieve more than our force.”
― Edmund Burke

“Never apologize for showing feeling. When you do so, you apologize for the truth.”
― Edmund Burke

Sir Edmund Burke Quotes and Sayings

Edmund Burke Quotes On Human Nature

“It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”
― Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

“Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.”
― Edmund Burke

“Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair.”
― Edmund Burke

“He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.”
― Edmund Burke

“Among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.”
― Edmund Burke

Sir Edmund Burke Quotes On Human Nature

“It is a general popular error to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.”
― Edmund Burke

“If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.”
― Edmund Burke

“There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men.”
― Edmund Burke

“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, Speech on Conciliation with America

“They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.”
― Edmund Burke

Sir Edmund Burke Quotes On Human Nature

Edmund Burke Famous Quotes

“Kings will be tyrants by the policy when subjects are rebels from principle.”
― Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

“I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that the delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it.”
― Edmund Burke

“There is a boundary to men’s passions when they act from feelings, but none when they are under the influence of imagination.”
― Edmund Burke

“The greatest gift is a passion for reading.”
― Edmund Burke

“The human mind is often, and I think it is for the most part, in a state neither of pain nor pleasure, which I call a state of indifference.”
― Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

Sir Edmund Burke Famous Quotes

“The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.”
― Edmund Burke

“Society is a partnership of the dead, the living and the unborn.”
― Edmund Burke

“A state without the means of some change, is without the means of its own conservation.”
― Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

“The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again; and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.”
― Edmund Burke

“All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.”
― Edmund Burke

Sir Edmund Burke Famous Quotes

Edmund Burke History Quotes

“To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.”
― Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

“No man had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him.”
― Edmund Burke

“The only thing necessary for the continuance of evil is for a good man to do nothing.”
― Edmond Burke

“Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in a hundred years.”
― Edmund Burke

“Those who attempt to level, never equalize.”
― Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

Sir Edmund Burke History Quotes

“The nature of things is, I admit, a sturdy adversary.”
― Edmund Burke, Select Works of Edmund Burke, Volume 3: Letters on a Regicide Peace

“All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”
― Edmund Burke

“There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.”
― Edmund Burke

“The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.”
― Edmond Burke

“Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.”
― Edmund Burke

Sir Edmund Burke History Quotes

Edmund Burke Sayings and Phrases

“He that accuses all mankind of corruption ought to remember that he is sure to convict only one.”
― Edmund Burke

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites.”
― Edmund Burke

“Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.”
― Edmund Burke

“We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us”
― Edmund Burke

“Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver, and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.”
― Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

Edmund Burke Sayings and Phrases

“Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”
― Edmund Burke

“Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security.”
― Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France

“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

“I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche, upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases.”
― Edmund Burke

“Terror is a passion which always produces delight when it does not press too close.”
― Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke Sayings and Phrases

Edmund Burke Quotes On Evil

“A representative owes not just his industry but his judgement”
― Edmund Burke

“Geography is an earthly subject, but a heavenly science.”
― Edmund Burke

“It is generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles and design.”
― Edmund Burke

“Society is indeed a contract … it becomes a participant not only between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”
― Edmund Burke

“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”
― Edmund Burke

Which Of These Sir Edmund Burke Quotes you agree with?

It is interesting to look at the past and notice how some people have influenced our life and our today’s world. However, it is just as important to understand the context of Edmund Burke’s quotes and sayings and realize the progress civilization has made since their time.

We can still resonates with some of Sir Edmund Burke Quotes and some of them feel outdated. But the thing that matters the most is to understand what you think is right and to live your life in that way.

Do share your thoughts with us in the comment section and tell us which one was your favorite Sir Edmund Burke Quotes or if you want to ask any questions or have any query send them via Contact Us

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