Quotes from burke edmund ii

Never, no, never did Nature say one thing and Wisdom say another.

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither is, in my opinion, safe.

Nothing tends more to the corruption of science than to suffer it to stagnate. These waters must be troubled before they can exert their virtues. A man who works beyond the surface of things, though he may be wrong himself, yet he clears the way for others, and may chance to make even his errors subservient to the cause of truth.

Patience will achieve more than force.

A wise and salutary neglect.

Laws, like houses, lean on one another.

A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arises from words.

To innovate is not to reform.

Manners are of more importance than laws. The law can touch us here and there, now and then. 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.

Hypocrisy, of course, delights in the most sublime speculations; for, never intending to go beyond speculation, it costs nothing to have it magnificent.

All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society.

Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.

The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.

People crushed by law, have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much to hope and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous.

The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.