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Quotes from Reflections on the Revolution in France — Edmund Burke

1729–1797 Ireland

← All quotes by Edmund Burke

45 quotes

People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone!

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

The men of England — the men, I mean of light and leading in England.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche, upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Wars are just to those to whom they are necessary.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

To execute laws is a royal office; to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

In their nomination to office they will not appoint to the exercise of authority as to a pitiful job, but as to a holy function.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

That chastity of honour which felt a stain like a wound.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

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

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

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.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

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.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Men who undertake considerable things, even in a regular way, ought to give us ground to presume ability.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Writers, especially when they act in a body and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

No man can mortgage his injustice as a pawn for his fidelity.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit, and not a series of unconnected acts. Through just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

It shews the anxiety of the great men who influenced the conduct of affairs at that great event, to make the Revolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery of future revolutions.

Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)

Attribution

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