A biography for Edmund Burkehasn’t been written yet.
“Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy.”
“There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination.”
“Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.”
“Frugality is founded on the principal that all riches have limits.”
“Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.”
“It is our ignorance of things that causes all our admiration and chiefly excites our passions.”
“If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived.”
“History is the preceptor of prudence, not principles.”
“A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.”
“Woman is not made to be the admiration of all, but the happiness of one.”
“The march of the human mind is slow.”
“All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice.”
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
“It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs.”
“It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.”
“The most important of all revolutions, a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions.”
“Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.”
“In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature.”
“What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.”
“People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.”