People
Edmund Burke 1729-1797 - Ireland, England
Encyclopedia Entries
Columbia
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The
Free Dictionary
Questions of
Moderation in favor of liberty and order
Reading
Writing available on the net
Commentaries
From Revolution
to Reconstruction
BluPete
See his correspondence (9 vol., 1958–70); selections ed. by W. J.
Bate (1960); biographies by P. M. Magnus (1939, repr. 1973) and S. Ayling
(1988); studies by T. W. Copeland (1949, repr. 1970), C. Parkin (1956,
repr. 1968), C. B. Cone (2 vol., 1957–64), P. J. Stanlis (1958, repr.
1986); G. W. Chapman (1967), R. Kirk (1967), and B. T. Wilkins (1967).
Quotations
§ "The more deeply we penetrate into the
labyrinth of art, the further we find ourselves from those ends for which we
entered it." (A Vindication of Natural Society, 1756.)
§ "An air of robustness and strength is very
prejudicial to beauty. An appearance of delicacy and even of fragility, is
almost essential to it." (Sublime & Beautiful, 1756.)
§ "Calamity is unhappily the usual season of
reflection." (Letter to Sheriffs of Bristol, 1777.)
§ "He that wrestles with us strengthens our
nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper." (Reflections
on the Revolution in France, 1790.)
§ "Our constitution is a prescriptive
constitution; it is a constitution, whose sole authority is, that it has
existed time out of mind." (1782.)
§ "I set out with a perfect distrust of my
own abilities, a total renunciation of every speculation of my own, and with
a profound reverence for the wisdom of our ancestors, who have left us the
inheritance of so happy a Constitution and so flourishing an empire, and,
what is a thousand times more valuable, the treasury of the maxims and
principles which formed the one and obtained the other." (On
Conciliation with the American Colonies.)
-
§ "Despotism of the multitude ... [however]
democracy is the only tolerable form into which human society can be thrown,
that a man is not permitted to hesitate about its merits, without the
suspicion of being a friend to tyranny, that is, of being a foe to
mankind?"
§ "The human mind is often in a state neither
of pain nor pleasure, which I call a state of indifference." (Sublime
& Beautiful, 1756.)
- § "In a democracy, the majority of the
citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the
minority." (Reflections on the Revolution in France,
1790.)
§ "The publick is the theatre for mountebanks
and impostors." (1796.)
-
- § "That doctrine of the equality of all men,
which has been preached by knavery, and so greedily adopted by malice, envy,
and cunning." (1778.)
- Family:-
§ "To love the little platoon we belong to in
society, is the first principle (the germ as it were) of publick
affections." (Reflections on the Revolution in France,
1790.)
-
- § "A man that breeds a family without
competent means of maintenance, encumbers other men with his children."
(Speech on the Repeal of the Marriage Act, 1781.)
§ "No passion so effectually robs the mind of
all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear."
§ "In the fog and haze of confusion all is
enlarged." (1797.)
§ "Parliament is not a congress of
ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must
maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but
parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that
of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to
guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole.
You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member
of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament." And further: "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." (Speech
to the Electors of Bristol, November 3, 1774.)
§ "The objects of society are of the greatest
possible complexity." (Reflections on the Revolution in France,
1790.)
§ "All government, indeed every human benefit
and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise
and barter we give and take; we remit some rights, that we may enjoy
others." (Speech, Conciliation with America, 1775.)
§ "The government is a juggling confederacy
of a few to cheat the prince and enslave the people." (A
Vindication of Natural Society, 1756.)
§ "It is one of the finest problems in
legislation, What the state ought to take upon itself to direct and what it
ought to leave, with as little interference as possible, to individual
discretion." (1795.)
§ "Popular remedies must be quick and sharp,
or they are very ineffectual." (1774.)