Edmund Burke Quotes

The highest proof of virtue is to possess boundless power without abusing it.

None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom but license.

Though the wisdom or virtue of one can very rarely make many happy, the folly or vice of one man often make many miserable.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

The disciplined are free.

Coercion may prevent many transgressions; but it robs even actions which are legal of a part of their beauty. Freedom may lead to many transgressions, but it lends even to vices a less ignoble form.

We are all of us the worse for too much liberty.

The end and perfection of our victories is to avoid the vices and infirmities of those whom we subdue.

A well-governed appetite is the greater part of liberty.

According to the Stoics, all vice was resolvable into folly: according to the Christian principle, it is all the effect of weakness.

Freedom is not of use to those who do not know how to employ it.

People have been fed this diet of pabulum, rights, and impulsive freedom. There's just an absolute starvation for the other side of the story.

Greatness lies not in being strong, but in the right use of strength.

Silence is the eternal duty of man.

What wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear without the knowledge of evil? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true wayfaring Christian.

One who is allowed to sin, sins less

License they mean when they cry Liberty; For who loves that, must first be wise and good.

We must understand that the highest form of freedom carries with it the greatest measure of discipline.

Would you live with ease, Do what you ought, and not what you please.

Before you speak, listen. Before you write, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you invest, investigate. Before you criticize, wait. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try. Before you retire, save. Before you die, give.

Prudence is a necessary ingredient in all the virtues, without which they degenerate into folly and excess.

Young men can be impetuous, young men can be rush, young men can be fools, but the Car'a'carn cannot let himself be a young man.

Behind real freedom, there lies discipline.

Those wretches who never have experienced the sweets of wisdom and virtue, but spend all their time in revels and debauches, sink downward day after day, and make their whole life one continued series of errors.

Great men should drink with harness on their throats.