Edmund Burke Quotes on Knowledge
Edmund Burke was an Irish-born British statesman and political philosopher, often regarded as the founder of modern conservatism. This page collects quotes attributed to Edmund Burke on the topic of knowledge, drawn from across the philosopher's works.
Quotes
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Attributed to Edmund Burke:
“Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.”
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Attributed to Edmund Burke:
“All that is necessary for evil to flourish is for the wise to remain silent.”
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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 -
“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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“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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