|
|
Men who undertake considerable things, even in a regular way,
ought to give us ground to presume ability.
Topic: Ability
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France
|
Chapter of accidents.
Topic: Accident
Source: Notes for Speeches (vol. II, p. 426), (1852 edition)
|
Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.
Topic: Agreement
Source: None
|
A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not
yet hardened into the bone of manhood.
Topic: America
Source: Speech on Conciliation with America--Works (vol. II)
|
Young man, there is America--which at this day serves for little
more than to amuse you with stories of savage men and uncouth
manners; yet shall, before you taste of death, show itself equal
to the whole that commerce which now attracts the envy of the
world.
Topic: America
Source: Speech on Conciliation with America--Works (vol. II)
|
People will not look forward to posterity, who never look
backward to their ancestors.
Topic: Ancestry
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France (vol. III, p. 274)
|
The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of
the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it,
and that which tends most to the perpetuation of society itself.
It makes our weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts
benevolence even upon avarice. The possession of family wealth
and of the distinction which attends hereditary possessions (as
most concerned in it,) are the natural securities for this
transmission.
Topic: Ancestry
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France (vol. III, p. 298)
|
Some decent regulated pre-eminence, some preference (not
exclusive appropriation) given to birth, is neither unnatural,
nor unjust, nor impolite.
Topic: Ancestry
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France (vol. III, p. 299)
|
We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.
Topic: Applause
Source: None
|
Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one
direction, have great influence on the public mind.
Topic: Authorship
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France
|
When we speak of the commerce with our colonies, fiction lags
after truth, invention is unfruitful, and imagination cold and
barren.
Topic: Business
Source: Speech on the Conciliation of America
|
He was not merely a chip of the old Block, but the old Block
itself.
Topic: Character
Source: About Wm. Pitt-Wraxall's Memoirs (vol. II, p. 342)
|
All men that are ruined, are ruined on the side of their natural
propensities.
Topic: Character
Source: Letters--Letter I--On a Regicide Peace
|
No sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing voice of
Christian charity.
Topic: Charity
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France
|
That chastity of honour which felt a stain like a wound.
Topic: Chastity
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France
|
It has all the contortions of the sibyl without the inspiration.
Topic: Comparisons
Source: Prior's Life of Burke
|
All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.
Topic: Compromise
Source: None
|
There ought to be a system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
Topic: Country
Source: None
|
The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.
Topic: Curiosity
Source: None
|
I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no
small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others.
Topic: Delight
Source: The Sublime and Beautiful (pt. I, sec. 14)
|
A perfect democracy is therefore the most shameless thing in the
world.
Topic: Democracy
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France
|
The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the
nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone!
Topic: Disgrace
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France (vol. III, p. 331)
|
The men of England--the men, I mean of light and leading in
England.
Topic: England
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France
|
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Topic: Evil
Source: None
|
Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no
other.
Topic: Example
Source: Letter I--On a Regicide Peace (vol. V, p. 331)
|
Illustrious Predecessor.
Topic: Example
Source: Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents
|
Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.
Topic: Fear
Source: None
|
No man can mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity.
Topic: Fidelity
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France
|
You can never plan the future by the past.
Topic: Future
Source: Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (vol. IV, p. 55)
|
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
Topic: Goodness
Source: None
|
All government--indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every
virtue and every prudent act--is founded on compromise and
barter.
Topic: Government
Source: Second Speech on Conciliation with America
|
And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first
scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.
Topic: Government
Source: Thoughts and Details on Scarcity (vol. V, p. 156)
|
When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will
fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible
struggle.
Topic: Government
Source: Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontent
|
Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom.
Topic: Government
Source: None
|
I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country
churchyard, than in the tombs of the Capulets.
Topic: Grave
Source: Letter to Matthew Smith
|
The cold neutrality of an impartial judge.
Topic: Judges
Source: Preface to Brissot's Address (vol. V, p. 67)
|
It is the function of a judge not to make but to declare the law,
according to the golden mete-wand of the law and not by the
crooked cord of discretion.
Topic: Judges
Source: Preface to Brissot's Address (vol. V, p. 67)
|
Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and
Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.
Topic: Judges
Source: Preface to Brissot's Address (vol. V, p. 67)
|
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.
Topic: Justice
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France
|
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.
Topic: Justice
Source: Speech on Conciliation with America (Works, vol. II, p. 136)
|
Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.
Topic: Justice
Source: None
|
There was an ancient Roman lawyer, of great fame in the history
of Roman jurisprudence, whom they called Cui Bono, from his
having first introduced into judicial proceedings the argument,
"What end or object could the party have had in the act with
which he is accused."
Topic: Law
Source: Impeachment of Warren Hastings
|
I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against an
whole people.
Topic: Law
Source: Speech on the Conciliation of America
|
A good parson once said that where mystery begins religion ends.
Cannot I say, as truly at least, of human laws, that where
mystery begins, justice ends?
Topic: Law
Source: Vindication of Natural Society
|
Learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the
hoofs of a swinish multitude.
Topic: Learning
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France
|
In all forms of government the people is the true legislator.
Topic: Legislators
Source: None
|
But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is
the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and
madness, without tuition or restraint.
Topic: Liberty
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France
|
The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
Topic: Liberty
Source: Speech at a County Meeting at Bucks
|
My vigour relents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.
Topic: Liberty
Source: Speech on the Conciliation of America (vol. II, p. 118)
|
There ought to be system of manners in every nation which a
well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love
our country, our country ought to be lovely.
Topic: Love of Country
Source: Reflections on the Revolution in France (vol. III, p. 100)
|
