Edmund Burke Quotes

There have certainly been many periods in history when virtue was more rare than under the Caesars; but there has probably never been a period when vice was more extravagant or uncontrolled.

The accumulation of numbers always augments in some measure moral corruptions, and the consequences to health of the various vices incident thereto, are well known.

Vice is a creature of such hideous mien... that the more you see it the better you like it.

It is a proof of our natural bias to evil, that gain is slower and harder than loss in all things good; but in all things bad getting is quicker and easier than getting rid of.

Never will there be grief enough over the corruption of morals so extensively increasing and promoted by irreligious and obscene writings, theatrical spectacles and meretricious houses established almost everywhere; by other depraved arts and monstrous portents of every error disseminated in all directions; by the abominable impurities of all vices and crimes growing constantly and the deadly virus of unbelief and indifferentism spread far and wide; by contempt for ecclesiastical authority

There are certain seasons in the course of human affairs, when Genius, Virtue, and Patriotism, seems to nod over the vices of the times.

Vice cannot be removed completely, nor is it right that it should be removed.

I have so great a contempt and detestation for meanness, that I could sooner make a friend of one who had committed murder, than of a person who could be capable, in any instance, of the former vice. Under meanness, I comprehend dishonesty; under dishonesty, ingratitude; under ingratitude, irreligion; and under this latter, every species of vice and immorality in human nature.

Vice, like disease, floats in the atmosphere.

Our religion is made to eradicate vices, instead it encourages them, covers them, and nurtures them.

No one in Germany laughs at vice, nor do they call it the fashion to corrupt and to be corrupted.

Vice is its own reward.

Other vices make their own way; this makes way for all vices. He that is a drunkard is qualified for all vice.

Like Daniel she enteres the lions' den, but lacking Daniel's pure and unblemished soul, Ada is spiced with the flavors of vice that make for a tasty meal. Pure and unblemished souls must taste very bland, with an aftertaste of bitterness.

Lust is a sharp spur to vice, which always putteth the affections into a false gallop.

The examples of vice at home corrupt us more quickly and easily than others, since they steal into our minds under the highest authority.

Part of the problem about authenticity is that virtues aren't the only things that are habit forming: the more someone behaves in a way that is damaging to self or to others, the more "natural" it will both seem and actually be. Spontaneity, left to itself, can begin by excusing bad behavior and end by congratulating vice.

Never support two weaknesses at the same time. It's your combination sinners - your lecherous liars and your miserly drunkards - who dishonor the vices and bring them into bad repute.

But virtue too, as well as vice, is clad in flesh and blood.

No man ever became very wicked all at once.

There will he nothing more that posterity can add to our immoral habits; our descendants must have the same desires and act the same follies as their sires. Every vice has reached its zenith.

The possession of unlimited power corrodes the conscience, hardens the heart, and confounds the understanding.

The mind grows narrow in proportion as the soul grows corrupt.

Without enthusiasm, virtue functions not at all, and vice only poorly.

The absence of vices adds so little to the sum of one's virtues.