Edmund Burke
Conservatism founder
Sayings by Edmund Burke
The individual is foolish; the multitude, for the moment, is foolish, when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise, and, when time is given to it, as a species, it always acts right.
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
The greatest crimes are not committed by 'hot and passionate' men, but by 'cold and deliberate' ones.
The character of the people is the only standard to which the laws can be referred.
It is a general error, to imagine the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
The laws of commerce are the laws of nature, and consequently the laws of God.
A perfect democracy is, therefore, the most shameless thing in the world.
The true politician, when he is called to the helm of a state, is to know how to preserve it from the storms, and not to expose it to them.
The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.
The power of punishment is to prevent crime, not to punish it.
There is no safety for honest men but by believing all possible evil of evil men.
The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.
The cold neutrality of an impartial judge.
The age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded.
People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.
The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.
The march of the human mind is slow.
Because half a dozen grasshoppers under a fern make the field ring with their importunate chink, whilst thousands of great cattle, reposed beneath the shadow of the British oak, chew the cud and are silent, pray do not imagine that those who make the noise are the only inhabitants of the field; or that, necessarily, they are even the most numerous.
He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper.
It is a general error to imagine that those whom we call authors are the only writers. There is another class of writers, and a very numerous one, who are in the habit of writing without ever putting pen to paper.