“But 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. If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty, soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular. Suspicions will be raised of his fidelity to his cause. Moderation will be stigmatized as the virtue of cowards; and compromise as the prudence of traitors; until, in hopes of preserving the credit which may enable him to temper, and moderate, on some occasions, the popular leader is obliged to become active in propagating doctrines, and establishing powers, that will afterwards defeat any sober purpose at which he ultimately might have aimed.”
Edmund Burke“You can never plan the future by the past.”
Edmund Burke“Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.”
Edmund Burke“Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.”
Edmund Burke“It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.”
Edmund Burke“Laws, like houses, lean on one another.”
Edmund Burke“Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.”
Edmund Burke“A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.”
Edmund Burke“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.”
Edmund Burke“Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.”
Edmund Burke“Education is the cheap defense of nations.”
Edmund Burke