Edmund Burke Quotations | Page 3

I find along with many virtues in my countrymen there is a jealousy, a soreness, and readiness to take offence, as if they were the most helpless and impotent of mankind, and yet a violence... and a boistrousness in their resentment, as if they had been puffed up with the highest prosperity and power. they will not only be served, but it must also be in their own way and on their own principles and even in words and language that they liked... which renders it very difficult for a plain unguarded man as I am to have anything to do with them or their affairs.

England and Ireland may flourish together. The world is large enough for both of us. Let it be our care not to make ourselves too little for it.

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.

Some degree of novelty must be one of the materials in almost every instrument which works upon the mind; and curiosity blends itself, more or less, with all our pleasures.

The wisdom of our ancestors.

This sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his nature.

Where two motives, neither of them perfectly justifiable, may be assigned, the worst has the chance of being preferred.

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.

Many of the greatest tyrants on the records of history have begun their reigns in the fairest manner. But the truth is, this unnatural power corrupts both the heart and the understanding.

Circumspection and caution are part of wisdom.