Edmund Burke Quotes
Edmund Burke was an Irish-born British statesman and political philosopher, often regarded as the founder of modern conservatism. As a member of Parliament he supported conciliation with the American colonies and the impeachment of Warren Hastings, but he is best remembered for his Reflections on the Revolution in France, a sustained polemic against revolutionary abstractions and in defense of inherited tradition, prudence, and the partnership of the generations. The quotes below are attributed to Edmund Burke, organized by topic.
Browse Edmund Burke by topic
Edmund Burke on Freedom
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Attributed to Edmund Burke:
“Liberty too must be limited in order to be possessed.”
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“In the interval between his campaigns Agricola was employed in the great labours of peace. He knew that the general must be perfected by the legislator; and that the conquest is neither permanent nor honourable, which is only an introduction to tyranny... In short, he subdued the Britons by civilizing them; and made them exchange a savage liberty for a polite and easy subjection. His conduct is the most perfect model for those employed in the unhappy, but sometimes necessary, task of subduing a rude and free people.”
An Essay towards an Abridgment of English History (1757– c . 1763), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI (1856), p. 215 -
“I could show, that the same faction has, in one reign, promoted popular seditions, and, in the next, been a patron of tyranny; I could show, that they have all of them betrayed the public safety at all times, and have very frequently with equal perfidy made a market of their own cause, and their own associates. I could show how vehemently they have contended for names, and how silently they have passed over things of the last importance.”
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“We scarce ever had a prince, who by fraud, or violence, had not made some infringement on the constitution. We scarce ever had a parliament which knew, when it attempted to set limits to the royal authority, how to set limits to its own. Evils we have had continually calling for reformation, and reformations more grievous than any evils. Our boasted liberty sometimes trodden down, sometimes giddily set up, and ever precariously fluctuating and unsettled; it has only been kept alive by the blasts of continual feuds, wars, and conspiracies.”
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“The African [slave] trade was, in his opinion, an absolute robbery. It therefore could not be a doubt with the House, whether it was proper to abolish it.”
1780s | Speech in the House of Commons (12 May 1789), quoted in The Parliamentary History of England, From the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, Vol. XXVIII (1816), column 96 -
“You may have made a Revolution, but not a Reformation. You may have subverted Monarchy, but not recover'd freedom.”
1780s | Letter to Charles-Jean-François Depont (November 1789), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789–December 1791 (1967), p. 46
Edmund Burke on God
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“The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.”
Preface -
“There is nothing that God has judged good for us that He has not given us the means to accomplish, both in the natural and the moral world.”
Undated | Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 261 -
“Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.”
1780s | Speech in opening the impeachment of Warren Hastings (18 February 1788), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Volume the Tenth (1899), pp. 7-8 -
“Nothing is so fatal to Religion as indifference which is, at least, half Infidelity.”
1790s | Letter to William Smith, Member of the Irish Parliament (29 January 1795), quoted in R. B. McDowell (ed.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VIII: September 1794–April 1796 (1969), p. 128 -
“In their nomination to office they will not appoint to the exercise of authority as to a pitiful job, but as to a holy function.”
Reflections on the Revolution in France(1790) | Volume iii, p. 356
Edmund Burke on Justice
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“Justice was in all countries originally administered by the priesthood; nor indeed could laws in their first feeble state have either authority or sanction, so as to compel men to relinquish their natural independence, had they not appeared to come down to them enforced by beings of more than human power. The first openings of civility have been everywhere made by religion. Amongst the Romans, the”
An Essay towards an Abridgment of English History (1757– c . 1763), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI (1856), p. 196 -
“In the interval between his campaigns Agricola was employed in the great labours of peace. He knew that the general must be perfected by the legislator; and that the conquest is neither permanent nor honourable, which is only an introduction to tyranny... In short, he subdued the Britons by civilizing them; and made them exchange a savage liberty for a polite and easy subjection. His conduct is th”
An Essay towards an Abridgment of English History (1757– c . 1763), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI (1856), p. 215 -
“These principles it is necessary strictly to attend to, because they will serve much to explain the whole course both of government and real property, wherever the German nations obtained a settlement; the whole of their government depending for the most part upon two principles in our nature,—ambition, that makes one man desirous, at any hazard or expense, of taking the lead amongst others; and a”
An Essay towards an Abridgment of English History (1757– c . 1763), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI (1856), p. 282 -
“He was one of those who wished for the abolition of the Slave Trade . He thought it ought to be abolished on principles of humanity and justice.”
1780s | Speech in the House of Commons (9 May 1788), quoted in The Parliamentary History of England, From the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, Vol. XXVII (1816), column 502 -
“There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity — the law of nature, and of nations.”
On the Impeachment of Warren Hastings(1794) | 28 May 1794 -
“Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.”
1780s | Letter to M. de Menonville (October 1789) -
“You have theories enough concerning the Rights of Men. It may not be amiss to add a small degree of attention to their Nature and disposition.”
1780s | Letter to Charles-Jean-François Depont (November 1789), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789–December 1791 (1967), p. 46
Edmund Burke on Knowledge
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Attributed to Edmund Burke:
“Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.”
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“I take toleration to be a part of religion . I do not know which I would sacrifice; I would keep them both: it is not necessary that I should sacrifice either.”
1770s | Speech on the Bill for the Relief of Protestant Dissenters (7 March 1773) -
“Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom ; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.”
Second Speech on Conciliation with America (1775) -
“Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom.”
Reflections on the Revolution in France(1790) -
“Learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.”
Reflections on the Revolution in France(1790) | Volume iii, p. 335
Edmund Burke on Life
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“The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone!”
Reflections on the Revolution in France(1790) | Volume iii, p. 331
Edmund Burke on Mind
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“Never wholly separate in your Mind the merits of any Political Question from the Men who are concerned in it.”
1780s | Letter to Charles-Jean-François Depont (November 1789), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789–December 1791 (1967), p. 47 -
“The first and the simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind is Curiosity.”
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful(1757) | Part I Section I -
“No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.”
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful(1757) | Part II Section II
Edmund Burke on Nature
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“Custom reconciles us to everything.”
Part IV Section XVIII -
“A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way towards informing us of the nature of the thing defined.”
Introduction On Taste -
“It is reconciled in policy; and politics ought to be adjusted, not to human reasonings, but to human nature; of which the reason is but a part; and by no means the greatest part.”
1760s | Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation (1769), page 78 -
“We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature, and the means perhaps of its conservation.”
1790s | Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe (1792) -
“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.”
Reflections on the Revolution in France(1790) | Volume iii, p. 277
Edmund Burke on Politics
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Attributed to Edmund Burke:
“Society is indeed a contract, between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”
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“People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.”
Volume iii, p. 274 -
“Justice was in all countries originally administered by the priesthood; nor indeed could laws in their first feeble state have either authority or sanction, so as to compel men to relinquish their natural independence, had they not appeared to come down to them enforced by beings of more than human power. The first openings of civility have been everywhere made by religion. Amongst the Romans, the custody and interpretation of the laws continued solely in the college of the pontiffs for above a century.”
An Essay towards an Abridgment of English History (1757– c . 1763), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI (1856), p. 196 -
“War ," says Machiavel , "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.”
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“People crushed by law, have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much to hope and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous.”
1770s | Letter to Charles James Fox (8 October 1777) -
“[France is] a Country where the people, along with their political servitude, have thrown off the Yoke of Laws and morals.”
1780s | Letter to William Windham (27 September 1789), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789–December 1791 (1967), p. 25 -
“To the Deity must be left the task of infinite perfection, while to us poor, weak, incapable mortals, there was no rule of conduct so safe as experience.”
1790s | Speech in the House of Commons (6 May 1791), quoted in The Parliamentary History of England, From the Earliest Period to the Year 1803, Vol. XXIX (1817), column 388 -
“It is the function of a judge not to make but to declare the law, according to the golden mete-wand of the law and not by the crooked cord of discretion.”
1790s | Preface to Brissot's Address (1794) -
“To execute laws is a royal office; to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust.”
Reflections on the Revolution in France(1790) | Volume iii, p. 497
Edmund Burke on Truth
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“Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy for superstition.”
Second Speech on Conciliation with America (1775)
Edmund Burke on Virtue
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“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
When bad men combine , the good must associate ; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle . It is not enough in a situation of trust in the commonwealth, that a man means well to his country ; it is not enough that in his single person he never did an evil act , but always voted according to his conscience , and even harangued against every design which he a -
Attributed to Edmund Burke:
“All that is necessary for evil to flourish is for the wise to remain silent.”
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“People must be governed in a manner agreeable to their temper and disposition; and men of free character and spirit must be ruled with, at least, some condescension to this spirit and this character.”
1760s | Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation (1769), page 76. -
“Boldness formerly was not the character of Atheists as such. ... But of late they are grown active, designing, turbulent, and seditious.”
1790s | "Thoughts on French Affairs" (December 1791), in Three Memorials on French Affairs (1797), p. 53 -
“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.”
Reflections on the Revolution in France(1790)
Things actually not said by Edmund Burke
A number of widely-shared lines are circulated as Edmund Burke but are in fact from someone else. Did Edmund Burke say these? No. Each entry below pairs the line with the person who actually wrote it.
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Did Edmund Burke say this? No.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: This is probably the most quoted statement attributed to Burke, and an extraordinary number of variants of it exist, but all without any definite original source. They closely resemble remarks known to have been made by the Utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill , in an address at the University o
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Did Edmund Burke say this? No.
“Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Not found in Burke's writings. It was almost certainly first published in Charles Caleb Colton 's Lacon (1820), vol. 1, no. 324
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Did Edmund Burke say this? No.
“Beauty is the promise of happiness.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Actually by Stendhal : "La beauté n'est que la promesse du bonheur" (Beauty is no more than the promise of happiness), in De L'Amour (1822), chapter 17
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Did Edmund Burke say this? No.
“If it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but the actual source is Lucius Cary. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Attributed to Benjamin Disraeli , to William Gerard Hamilton , to George Bernard Shaw , to John F. Kennedy (who at any rate quoted it) and to Edmund Burke, it was actually said by Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland in a speech in the House of Commons on 1641-11-22
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Did Edmund Burke say this? No.
“If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: First known in Thomas Fuller 's Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs (1732), but not found in the writings of Edmund Burke.
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Did Edmund Burke say this? No.
“Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Not Burke but Oliver Wendell Holmes in The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table (1858).
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Did Edmund Burke say this? No.
“Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling — it never forgives the preaching of a new gospel.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Actually from Frederic Harrison 's essay "Ruskin as Prophet", in his Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, and Other Literary Estimates (1899).
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Did Edmund Burke say this? No.
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
This quote is commonly attributed to philosophers but its actual source is uncertain or unverified in the standard reference works. Wikiquote's note on this attribution: Not found in Burke's writings. Appears to be a paraphrase of "It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little." sourced to Sydney Smith (1771 - 1845).
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Did Edmund Burke say this? No.
“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
Santayana wrote in The Life of Reason (1905): 'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' The popular reformulation as 'those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it' compresses and slightly alters Santayana's wording. The line is also frequently misattributed to Edmund Burke and Winston Churchill, neither of whom wrote it.