“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.”

Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, and politician

Edmund Burke was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, and politician. He is widely credited as a founder of conservatism in its cultural and political form, and is regarded as one of the most influential conservative thinkers and political writers of the 18th century. Burke spent most of his career in Great Britain and sat in the House of Commons as a Whig MP from 1766 to 1794. His writings helped shape public opinion in Great Britain and France after the French Revolution in 1789, and he remains a major reference point in modern conservative circles.