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Curiosity
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Some degree of novelty must be one of the materials in almost every instrument which works upon the mind; and curiosity blends itself, more or less, with all our pleasures.
-Edmund Burke
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Democracy
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In a democracy the majority of citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority...and that oppression of the majority will extend to far great number, and will be carried on with much greater fury, than can almost ever be apprehended from the dominion of a single sceptre. Under a cruel prince they have the plaudits of the people to animate their generous constancy under their sufferings; but those who are subjected to wrong under multitudes are deprived of all external consolation: they seem deserted by mankind, overpowered by a conspiracy of their whole species.
-Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790
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Evil
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"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
possible source for the famous quotation attributed to Burke: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." See also Plato's quotation in topic 'apathy'
-Edmund Burke, Thoughts on the Cause of Present Discontents, 1770
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Fear
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Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.
-Edmund Burke, [speech on the petition of the Unitarians, House of Commons], May 11, 1792
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No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
-Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1756)
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Imagination
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"There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings; but none when they are under the influence of imagination."
-Edmund Burke
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Justice
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"Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe."
-Edmund Burke
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It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.
-Edmund Burke, Works, vol. II, p. 136, Speech on Conciliation with America
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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.
-Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
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Liberty
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"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites...
Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without."
-Edmund Burke
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Manners
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"Manners are of more importance than laws. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in."
-Edmund Burke
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Mathematics
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It is from this absolute indifference and tranquillity of the mind, that mathematical speculations derive some of the most considerable advantages; because there is nothing to interest the imagination; because the judgment sits free and unbiased to examine the point. All proportions, every arrangement of quantity, is alike to the understanding, because the same truths result to it from all; from greater from lesser, from equality and inequality.
-Edmund Burke, On the Sublime and Beautiful
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Past, the
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"You can never plan the future by the past."
-Edmund Burke
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Patience
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"Our patience will achieve more than our force."
-Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790
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Politics
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Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.
-Edmund Burke, Speech on Conciliation with America: The Thirteen Resolutions, Works, vol. 2 (1899), [Speech at the House of Commons, London], March 22, 1775
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Power
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Among precautions against ambition, it may not be amiss to take precautions against our own. I must fairly say, I dread our own power and our own ambition: I dread our being too much dreaded. … We may say that we shall not abuse this astonishing and hitherto unheard of power. But every other nation will think we shall abuse it. It is impossible but that, sooner or later, this state of things must produce a combination against us which may end in our ruin.
-Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1790
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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.
-Edmund Burke
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Questions
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The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality.
-Edmund Burke
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Books by and about Edmund Burke
