Skip to content

Quotes from Reflections on the Revolution in France — Edmund Burke

1729–1797 Ireland

← All quotes by Edmund Burke

45 quotes

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.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

No sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

You had that action and counteraction which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers draws out the harmony of the universe.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

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

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Good order is the foundation of all good things.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Our patience will achieve more than our force.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

The body of all true religion consists, to be sure, in obedience to the will of the Sovereign of the world, in a confidence in His declarations, and in imitation of His perfections.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

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.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Whatever is supreme in a state, ought to have, as much as possible, its judicial authority so constituted as not only not to depend upon it, but in some sort to balance it.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

[T]he age of chivalry is gone.—That of sophisters, œconomists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observation of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

The wise will determine from the gravity of the case; the irritable from sensibility to oppression; the high-minded from disdain and indignation at abusive power in unworthy hands.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

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.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

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.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Edmund Burke (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.