Edmund Burke

Hypocrisy, of course, delights in the most touching displays of sensibility.

I am not one of those who think that the people are never in the wrong. They have been so, frequently and outrageously, both in other countries and in this.

Applaud us when we run, console us when we fall, cheer us when we recover.

To innovate is not to reform.

The greater the man, the more he is the subject of calumny.

Never was there a time in which I would have been more ashamed to have been a member of Parliament.

He who calls in the aid of an equal understanding, doubles his own; he who profits of a superior understanding, raises his powers to a level with the height of the superior understanding which he uses.

No man can be a good citizen who is not a good son, a good brother, a good husband, or a good father.

True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.

The concessions of the proud are always made with an ill grace.

They who are in love with an opinion, rather than with the truth, will never be cured of their error.

Man is by his constitution a religious animal.

If I cannot reform with equity, I will not reform at all.

Of all the loose and thoughtless theories of the time, this of the rights of man is the most foolish.

Public calamity is a mighty leveller.

I would rather sleep in the same bed with a toad than with a Frenchman.

The only sure way to prevent the abuse of power is to limit it.

Old establishments are tried by their effects. If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the government under which they are found to be good.

The operation of opinion is slow and gradual, but it is sure.

Political liberty, when it is carried to extremes, is dangerous and liable to be corrupted.