Quotes from Edmund Burke

Plans must be made for men. We cannot think of making men, and binding nature to our designs.

Everything ought to be open,—but not indifferently to every man.

I was, indeed, aware that a jealous, ever-waking vigilance, to guard the treasure of our liberty, not only from invasion, but from decay and corruption, was our best wisdom and our first duty.

and social manners. All these (in their way) are good things, too; and without them, liberty is not a benefit whilst it lasts, and is not likely to continue long. The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations, which may be soon turned into complaints. Prudence would dictate this in the case of separate, insulated, private men. But liberty, when men act

Few things discover the state of the arts amongst people more certainly than the presents that are made to them by foreigners.

All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter. We balance inconveniences; we give and take; we remit some rights, that we may enjoy others; and we choose rather to be happy citizens than subtle disputants.

All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.

Nothing, indeed, but the possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man.

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.

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy of superstition.