Tag: Edmund Burke

The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear.

Edmund Burke

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

Edmund Burke

Liberty, if I understand it at all, is a general principle, and the clear right of all the subjects within the realm, or of none. … the true danger is, when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts.

Edmund Burke

To speak of atrocious crime in mild language is treason to virtue.

Edmund Burke

The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.

Edmund Burke

Nothing is so fatal to Religion as indifference which is, at least, half Infidelity.

Edmund Burke

It is the function of a judge not to make but to declare the law, according to the golden metewand of the law and not by the crooked cord of discretion.

Edmund Burke

Manners are of more importance than laws. The law can touch us here and there, now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation like that of the air we breathe in.

Edmund Burke

We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.

Edmund Burke

Men must be governed by those laws which they love. Where thirty millions are to be governed by a few thousand men, the government must be established by consent, and must be congenial to the feelings and to the habits of the people. That which creates tyranny is the imposition of a form of government contrary to the will of the governed: and even a free and equal plan of government, would be considered as despotic by those who desired to have their old laws and their ancient system.

Edmund Burke