Edmund Burke Quotes

• "A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman."
• "A spirit of innovation is generally the result of a selfish temper and confined views. People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors."
• "A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. "
• "All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter."
• "All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice. "
• "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
• "All that's necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing."
• "Ambition can creep as well as soar. "
• "Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist."
• "Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones."
• "Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny."
• "Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty."
• "Beauty is the promise of happiness."
• "But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever."
• "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."
• "By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.
• "Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind."
• "Custom reconciles us to everything."
• "Education is the cheap defense of nations."
• "Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other."
• "Facts are to the mind what food is to the body."
• "Falsehood is a perennial spring."
• "Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver."
• "Free trade is not based on utility but on justice. "
• "Frugality is founded on the principal that all riches have limits."
• "Good order is the foundation of all things."
• "He had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame; a passion which is the instinct of all great souls."
• "He that struggles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper."
• "He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. "
• "Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing."
• "I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business."
• "I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people."
• "If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived."
• "If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed."
• "If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue."
• "In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority."
• "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."
• "It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare."
• "It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do."
• I"t is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere."
• "It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact."
• "It is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs."
• "Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all."
• "Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle."
• "Laws, like houses, lean on one another."
• "Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed."
• "Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together."
• "Mere parsimony is not economy. Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy."
• "Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair."
• "No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. "
• "Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society."
• "Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little."
• "Nobody makes a greater mistake than he who does nothing because he could only do a little."
• "Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference which is, at least, half infidelity. "
• "Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference."
• "Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government."
• "One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good. "
• "Our patience will achieve more than our force. "
• "Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls."
• "Patience will achieve more than force."
• "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."
• "People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors."
• "Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing."
• "Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement."
• "Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting."
• "Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation."
• "Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety."
• "Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle which fits them all."
• "Slavery is a weed that grows on every soil. "
• "Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives preaching of a new gospel."
• "Superstition is the religion of feeble minds."
• "The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth."
• "The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations."
• "The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity."
• "The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse. "
• "The march of the human mind is slow."
• "The most important of all revolutions, a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions. "
• "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
• "The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion."
• "The person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon him; he indulges it, he loves it; but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time."
• "The traveller has reached the end of the journey!"
• "The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts."
• "The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny."
• "There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination."
• "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."
• "Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."
• "Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief."
• "To innovate is not to reform."
• "To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely."
• "To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting."
• "To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men."
• "Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none."
• "Tyrants seldom want pretexts."
• "Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations - wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco."
• "We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature."
• "Well is it known that ambition can creep as well as soar."
• "What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man."
• "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
• "When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people.""
• Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe."
• "Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own."
• "Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants."
• "You can never plan the future by the past."
• "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion."

My Quote Collection

"The time is always right to do what is right." ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Just vengeance does not call for punishment." ~ Corneille, Pierre.

"To be in good moral condition requires at least as much training as to be in good physical condition." ~ Jawaharlal Nehru

"A thing, until it is everything, is noise, and once it is everything it is silence." ~ Antonio Porchia

"He who holds me by a thread is not strong; the thread is strong." ~ Antonio Porchia

"I am chained to the earth to pay for the freedom of my eyes." ~ Antonio Porchia

"I'm sleeping like a baby, too. Every two hours, I wake up, screaming." ~ Colin Powell

"If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it!" ~ Jonathan Winters

"Nothing is impossible. Some things are just less likely than others." ~ Jonathan Winters

"It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived." ~ George S. Patton

"Men reject their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and honor those they have slain." ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

"I think the devil doesn't exist, but man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness." ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

"Inventors and geniuses have almost always been looked on as no better than fools at the beginning of their career, and very frequently at the end of it also." ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

"A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved." ~ Kurt Vonnegut

"Wars may be fought with weapons, but they are won by men. It is the spirit of the men who follow and of the man who leads that gains that victory." ~ George S. Patton

"There's no such thing as chance;And what to us seems merest accidentSprings from the deepest source of destiny." ~ Friedrich Schiller

"Man only plays when in the full meaning of the word he is a man, and he is only completely a man when he plays." ~ Friedrich Schiller

"Too fair to worship, too divine to love." ~ Henry Hart Milman

"For he who fights and runs awayMay live to fight another day;But he who is in battle slainCan never rise and fight again." ~ Oliver Goldsmith

"All that is good is simple and all that is simple is good." ~ Mikhail Kalashnikov

"When war is declared, truth is the first casualty." ~ Arthur Ponsonby

"The general at the radar screenRubbed his hands with glee,And grinning pressed the buttonAnd started world war three." ~ Roger McGough

"There's the moon trying to look romanticMoon's too old that's her troubleAren't we all?" ~ Roger McGough

"I'm suspicious of any mode of transportation that requires a running start." ~ Alan Kotok

"Every one of us is precious in the cosmic perspective. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another." ~ Carl Sagan

"Genius does what it must, talent does what it can." ~ Robert Bulwer-Lytton

"The things which must be must be for the best." ~ Robert Bulwer-Lytton

"Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind." ~ John F. Kennedy

"It took a couple of hundred million years to develop a thinking ape and you want a smart one in a lousy few hundred thousand?" ~ Spider Robinson

"You stand in front of a million doors,Each one holds a million more." ~ Kate Bush

"The ignorant man always adores what he cannot understand." ~ Cesare Lombroso

"Genius is one of the many forms of insanity." ~ Cesare Lombroso

"The appearance of a single great genius is more than equivalent to the birth of a hundred mediocrities." ~ Cesare Lombroso

"Remember that life is hard, but when you are tough on yourself, life is going to be infinitely easier on you." ~ Zig Ziglar

"An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind." ~ Mohandas Gandhi

"The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you've got it made." ~ Jean Giraudoux

"History is always repeating itself, but each time the price goes up." ~ Will Durant

"Civilization begins with order, grows with liberty, and dies with chaos." ~ Will Durant

"Philosophy is harmonized knowledge making a harmonious life; it is the self-discipline which lifts us to serenity and freedom. Knowledge is power, but only wisdom is liberty." ~ Will Durant

"Seems to me the only difference between your friends and your enemies is how long they stand around chatting before they shoot you." ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

"A weapon is a device for making your enemy change his mind." ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

"Those who do not know their history are doomed to keep stepping in it." ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

"The dead cannot cry out for justice; it is a duty of the living to do so for them." ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

"Courage! I have shown it for years; think you I shall lose it at the moment when my sufferings are to end?" ~ Marie Antoinette

"We’d all like t’vote fer th’best man, but he’s never a candidate." ~ Kin Hubbard

"Men reject their prophets and slay them, but they love their martyrs and honor those they have slain." ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

"When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us." - Alexander Graham Bell

“Don't count the days- make the days count.”

"It is hard to tell if a man is telling the truth when you know you would lie if you were in his place." H. L. Mencken

“If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for, he isn't fit to live.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"It is not the strongest of the species that survive, but the one most responsive to change." - Clarence Darrow

"Evil triumphs when good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke

“A true friend laughs at your stories even when they're not so good, and sympathizes with your troubles even when they're not so bad” - Proverb.

“It's always darkest before the dawn.” - Proverb

“Ability is of little account without opportunity.” - Napoleon Bonaparte

“He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.” - Napoleon Bonaparte

“Imagination rules the world.” - Napoleon Bonaparte

“Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.” - Napoleon Bonaparte

“The surest way to remain poor is to be honest” - Napoleon Bonaparte

“Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them” - Napoleon Bonaparte

“Religion is what keeps the poor man from murdering the rich” - Napoleon Bonaparte

“It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.” - Marcus Aurelius

“Accept the things to which fate binds you, and love the people with whom fate brings you together, but do so with all your heart.” - Marcus Aurelius

“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” - Marcus Aurelius

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking” - Marcus Aurelius

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” - Marcus Aurelius

“A person's life is dyed with the color of his imagination.” - Marcus Aurelius

“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” - Marcus Aurelius

“The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.” - Marcus Aurelius

“To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution” - Marcus Aurelius

“Be content with what you are, and wish not change; nor dread your last day, nor long for it” - Marcus Aurelius

“Execute every act of thy life as though it were thy last.” - Marcus Aurelius

“Anger cannot be dishonest.” - Marcus Aurelius

“Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.” - Marcus Aurelius

“Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.” - Marcus Aurelius

"Those who would see wonderful things must often be ready to travel alone” - Henry van Dyke

“It is better to follow even the shadow of the best than to remain content with the worst, and those who would see wonderful things must often be ready to travel alone” - Henry van Dyke

"A friend in need is not really a friend indeed but merely a borrower."

"Some words may hide others." - William S.

“Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.” - Mark Twain

“Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it don't matter.” - Satchel Paige quote in Are We There Yet (2005)

“It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.” - Mark Twain

“Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don't mind, it doesn't matter.” - Mark Twain

"Love is a cease-fire that is destined to fail." - War, Inc. (2008)

"Hope. It is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness." - The Architect (The Matrix - Reloaded)

"nEver mAke s0meoNe y0ur pRi0rity- whEn tHey 0nly makE y0u an opti0n."

Quotes from Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) - The Godfather III - 1990

• Just when I thought that I was out they pull me back in.

• Never hate your enemies. It affects your judgment.

• Never let anyone know what you are thinking.

• When they come, they'll come at what you love.

• Your enemies always get strong on what you leave behind.

• The higher I go, the crookeder it becomes.

• [about Cardinal Lamberto] He should be careful. It's dangerous to be an honest man.

• Kay, I had a very different destiny planned for us.

• [to Mary] I would burn in hell to keep you safe.

• Nephew, from this moment on, call yourself Vincent Corleone.

• Father, I have sinned... I killed my brother... I killed my brother... I killed my mother's son... I killed my father's son...

• [to Kay] I spent my life protecting my son; I spent my life PROTECTING MY FAMILY!!

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"A man who allies himself with a God, is a strong and powerful being." - unknown

"The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend" - Arabian Proverb

"Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?" - Ben Obi-Wan Kenobi

“Madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push.” - The Joker(in memory of Heath Ledger)

Q: Is the glass half empty or half full?
A: "Never really thought it mattered unless you happen to be dying of thirst."

« On ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'essentiel est invisible pour les yeux. »
(One sees well only with the heart. What really matters is invisible to the eyes.)
by Antoine de Saint Exupéry

"With Great Power comes Great Responsibility" - Uncle Ben

"A true friend is someone you can trust, who reaches for your hand and touches your heart"

"It's not who I am underneath...but what I do that defines me." - The Dark Knight

"Don't leave someone who loves u for someone u love, for someday that someone will leave u for someone they love"

"Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer." - Sun-tzu (Chinese General & Military Strategist)

"HAPPINESS is only real when shared."

Never, ever approach a computer saying or even thinking "I will just do this quickly." - NooNoo

"Even the most beautiful rose has thorns."

"Patience is a Virtue."

"Intelligence + Character - that is the goal of true education." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"One's best success comes after their greatest disappointments."

"Kites rise highest against the wind-not with it."

"Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently." - Henry Ford

"To be kissed by a fool is stupid, To be fooled by a kiss is worse " - Ambrose Redmoon

"Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; and therefore is winged Cupid painted blind." - William Shakespeare (English Dramatist, Playwright and Poet, 1564-1616)

Love Knows NO Boundaries

"No one can understand love who has not experienced infatuation. And no one can understand infatuation, no matter how many times he has experienced it." - Mignon McLaughlin

"We are, each of us angels with only one wing; and we can only fly by embracing one another." - Luciano de Crescenzo

"The heart has reasons that reason does not understand." - Jacques Benigne Bossuel

"One reason I don't drink is that I want to know when I am having a good time."

"Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties." - Jules Renard

"One advantage of marriage, it seems to me, is that when you fall out of love with him, or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until maybe you fall in again." - Judith Viorst

"At the touch of Love every one becomes a poet." - Plato

"Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies." - Aristotle

"Love is not blind - it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see less." - Julins Gordon

"True love is when you put someone on a pedestal, and they fall - but you are there to catch them." - Anonymous

"Love is like the measles; we all have to go through it." - Jerome K. Jerome

"Love may not make the world go round, but I must admit that it makes the ride worthwhile." - Sean Connery

"Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently." -Hendry Ford

"Try not to become a man of success but rather to become a man of value." - Albert Einstein

"Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt." - Shakespeare

" Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow."

"Dont hate the player, hate the game."

“i'd trade off my Ace's for a Queen of Hearts”

“He who spends time regretting the past loses the present and risks the future”

"Never ever take someone for granted. Hold every person close to your heart bec. you might wake up 1 day & realize that u've lost a diamond while u were too busy collecting stones."

"False friends are like your shadow. They stick close to you whenever you are in the light and are nowhere to be found when you are in darkness."

"Sometimes, if a person is broken hearted, he/she never see "true love" passing by.. just a fact." - First Added: Sep 6, 2007 12:47 AM