Edmund Burke Quotes About Virtue

Quotes about: Virtue

• Our patience will achieve more than our force.

  Edmund Burke

  Inspirational, Patience, Virtue

  'Reflections on the Revolution in France' (1790) p. 249

• When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

  Edmund Burke

  Honesty, Integrity, War

  Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770) See Edmund Burke 28; Mill 18

• Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

  Edmund Burke

  Long, People, Political

  'Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol' (1777) p. 71

• 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.

  Edmund Burke

  Wisdom, Evil, Liberty

  Edmund Burke (2005). “Burke, Select Works”, The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

• Economy is a distributive virtue, and consists not in saving but in selection.

  Edmund Burke

  Saving, Virtue, Economy

  Edmund Burke (1834). “The Beauties of Burke, Consisting of Selections from His Works”, p.59

• Freedom without virtue is not freedom but license to pursue whatever passions prevail in the intemperate mind; man's right to freedom being in exact proportion to his willingness to put chains upon his own appetites; the less restraint from within, the more must be imposed from without.

  Edmund Burke

  Passion, Men, Mind

• All government, indeed every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and every prudent act, is founded on compromise and barter.

  Edmund Burke

  Commitment, Government, Political

  "On Moving His Resolutions for Conciliation with the Colonies," 22 Mar. 1775

• Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.

  Edmund Burke

  Heart, Tyrants, Mind

  Edmund Burke (1963). “Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches”, p.581, Transaction Publishers

• Taste and elegance, though they are reckoned only among the smaller and secondary morals, yet are of no mean importance in the regulations of life. A moral taste is not of force to turn vice into virtue; but it recommends virtue with something like the blandishments of pleasure, and it infinitely abates the evils of vice.

  Edmund Burke

  Mean, Evil, Vices

  Edmund Burke (1841). “Works”, p.484

• I find along with many virtues in my countrymen there is a jealousy, a soreness, and readiness to take offence, as if they were the most helpless and impotent of mankind, and yet a violence... and a boistrousness in their resentment, as if they had been puffed up with the highest prosperity and power. they will not only be served, but it must also be in their own way and on their own principles and even in words and language that they liked... which renders it very difficult for a plain unguarded man as I am to have anything to do with them or their affairs.

  Edmund Burke

  Men, History, Way

• Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, skeptical, puzzled and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit; and not a series of unconnected acts. Through past prejudice, his duty becomes part of his nature.

  Edmund Burke

  Past, Men, Decision

  Edmund Burke (1963). “Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches”, p.559, Transaction Publishers

• The distinguishing part of our constitution is its liberty. To preserve that liberty inviolate, is the peculiar duty and proper trust of a member of the house of commons. But the liberty, the only liberty I mean, is a liberty connected with order, and that not only exists with order and virtue, but cannot exist at all without them. It inheres in good and steady government, as in its substance and vital principle.

  Edmund Burke

  Order, Government, Liberty

  "The Works of Edmund Burke: With a Memoir, in Three Volumes".

• Society is indeed a contract. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.

  Edmund Burke

  Art, Perfection, Society

  Edmund Burke (1860). “The Works of Edmund Burke: With a Memoir”, p.498

• True humility-the basis of the Christian system-is the low but deep and firm foundation of all virtues.

  Edmund Burke

  Christian, Humility, Foundation

  Edmund Burke (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)”, p.3683, Delphi Classics

• It is better to cherish virtue and humanity, by leaving much to free will, even with some loss of the object , than to attempt to make men mere machines and instruments of political benevolence. The world on the whole will gain by a liberty, without which virtue cannot exist.

  Edmund Burke

  Loss, Men, Political

  Edmund Burke (1999). “The Portable Edmund Burke”, p.433, Penguin

• The great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of the great.

  Edmund Burke

  Greatness, Long, Dominion

  Edmund Burke (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)”, p.3765, Delphi Classics

• Power gradually extirpates from the mind every humane and gentle virtue.

  Edmund Burke

  Power, Mind, Politics

  "The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke: Collected in Three Volumes".

• Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy. If parsimony were to be considered as one of the kinds of that virtue, there is, however, another and a higher economy. Economy is a distinctive virtue, and consists not in saving, but in selection.

  Edmund Burke

  Essentials, Saving, May

• Nnothing tends more to the corruption of science than to suffer it to stagnate. These waters must be troubled, before they can exert their virtues.

  Edmund Burke

  Science, Water, Suffering

  "On Taste, on the Sublime and Beautiful, Reflections on the French Revolution & a Letter to a Noble Lord".

• 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.

  Edmund Burke

  Interesting, Ancestry, Weakness

  Edmund Burke (1912). “Reflections on the French Revolution”, p.51, CUP Archive

• I do not hesitate to say that the road to eminence and power, from an obscure condition, ought not to be made too easy, nor a thing too much of course. If rare merit be the rarest of all things, it ought to pass through some sort of probation. The temple of honor ought to be seated on an eminence. If it be open through virtue, let it be remembered, too, that virtue is never tried but by some difficulty and some struggle.

  Edmund Burke

  Struggle, Greatness, Honor

  Edmund Burke (1790). “Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the proceedings in certain societies in London, relative to that event. In a letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Paris ... The seventh edition”, p.74

• If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.

  Edmund Burke

  May, Virtue, Health Care

• That cardinal virtue, temperance.

  Edmund Burke

  Virtue, Cardinals, Temperance

• Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatever; but, as in the exercise of all the virtues, there is an economy of truth. It is a sort of temperance, by which a man speaks truth with measure, that he may speak it the longer.

  Edmund Burke

  Truth, Exercise, Men

  Edmund Burke (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)”, p.3863, Delphi Classics

• Virtue will catch as well as vice by contact; and the public stock of honest manly principle will daily accumulate. We are not too nicely to scrutinize motives as long as action is irreproachable. It is enough (and for a worthy man perhaps too much) to deal out its infamy to convicted guilt and declared apostasy.

  Edmund Burke

  Men, Long, Guilt

  Edmund Burke (2008). “The Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke: On Conciliation with America; Security of the Independence of Parliament; on Mr. Fox's East India”, p.242, Cosimo, Inc.

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