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
struggle greatness honor
I do not hesitate to say that the road to eminence and power, from an obscure condition, ought not to be made too easy, nor a thing too much of course. If rare merit be the rarest of all things, it ought to pass through some sort of probation. The temple of honor ought to be seated on an eminence. If it be open through virtue, let it be remembered, too, that virtue is never tried but by some difficulty and some struggle.
struggle men greatness
Great men are never sufficiently shown but in struggles.
ceases limit
There is a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
art partnership born
Art is a partnership not only between those who are living but between those who are dead and those who are yet to be born.
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?
fate men evil
The Fate of good men who refuse to become involved in politics is to be ruled by evil men.
mean survival reform
A nation without means of reform is without means of survival.
freedom atheism superstitions
Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy of superstition.
liberty society appetite
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.
love doe weakness
Who can know her, and himself, and entertain much hope? Who can see and know such a creature, and not love her to distraction? She has all the softness that does not imply weakness... she is not made to be the admiration of everybody, but the happiness of one.
military war mean
"War," says Machiavelli, "ought to be the only study of a prince;" and by a prince he means every sort of state, however constituted. "He ought," says this great political doctor, "to consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes ability to execute military plans. "A meditation on the conduct of political societies made old Hobbes imagine that war was the state of nature.
wisdom instructors
The grand instructor, time.
real mean men
What is it we all seek for in an election? To answer its real purposes, you must first possess the means of knowing the fitness of your man; and then you must retain some hold upon him by personal obligation or dependence.
war found nations
War never leaves where it found a nation.