Edmund Burke, 1729 - 1797
Portrait by the studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds (ca. 1770)
Born: 12 January 1729, Dublin, Ireland
Died: 9 July 1797, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England, UK
Edmund Burke was an Irish politician, writer, orator and philosopher admired in his time by conservatives and liberals alike, and is considered the father of modern conservatism. In a time when Catholicism was a bar to holding any political office, he was often accused of having Catholic sympathies and possibly being a Catholic himself, as both his mother and his sister were practicing Catholics. During his time at Trinity College in Dublin, he set up a debating club in 1747, called the Edmund Burke Club, which merged with the Historical Club in 1770 to create the Historical Society, now the oldest undergraduate society in the world.
Burke's first book, A Vindication of Natural Society: A View of the Evils and Miseries Arising to Mankind, was written as response to Letters on the Study and Use of History by Henry St. John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke and imitated Bolingbroke's style so perfectly that many didn't realize it was a satire. His next book, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, was his only purely philosophical work.
In 1765, Burke entered Parliament as a member of the House of Commons, and his maiden speech made it clear that he was an orator to be reckoned with. In subsequent years, he would find himself supporting the American Revolutionaries, and constitutional limitations on the power of the monarchy. He spoke against the Partition of Poland and, while initially supportive of the aims of the French Revolution, was repelled by the bloodiness and soon opposed it vehemently, calling the revolutionaries "the ablest architects of ruin that had hitherto existed in the world." His Reflections on the Revolution in France, published in 1790, sparked a pamphlet war involving the likes of Thomas Paine, Mary Wollstonecraft, and James Mackintosh, and split Burke's Whig party. He opposed British imperialism in Ireland and India, French imperialism and radicalism, and the laws restricting the rights of Catholics.
Biography from Wikipedia
Additional quotes from Wikiquote. Wikiquote entries are often "sourced" and may include items longer than those included here, particularly for poets, lyricists, and dramatists.
Edmund Burke quotes:
Quotes found : 124 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 9) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Click here to find books by Edmund Burke at Amazon.com
- A good parson once said that where mystery begins religion ends. Cannot I say, as truly at least, of human laws, that where mystery begins, justice ends? permalink
Edmund Burke - A Vindication of Natural Society: A View of the Miseries and Evils Arising to Mankind (1756) - A great profusion of things, which are splendid or valuable in themselves, is magnificent. The starry heaven, though it occurs so very frequently to our view, never fails to excite an idea of grandeur. This cannot be owing to the stars themselves, separately considered. The number is certainly the cause. permalink
Edmund Burke - A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) - A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. permalink
Edmund Burke - Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) - A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arises from words. permalink
Edmund Burke - Letter to his son Richard Burke - Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found. permalink
Edmund Burke - Second Speech on Conciliation with America, The Thirteen Resolutions (1775) - All government — indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act — is founded on compromise and barter.
permalink
Edmund Burke - Second Speech on Conciliation with America, The Thirteen Resolutions (1775) - All men that are ruined, are ruined on the side of their natural propensities. permalink
Edmund Burke - Letters On a Regicide Peace (1796) - 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. permalink
Edmund Burke - Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) - All who have ever written on government are unanimous, that among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist. permalink
Edmund Burke - Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (3 April 1773) - Ambition can creep as well as soar. permalink
Edmund Burke - An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent. permalink
Edmund Burke - And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them. permalink
Edmund Burke - Thoughts and Details on Scarcity (1795) - Applaud us when we run, console us when we fall, cheer us when we recover. permalink
Edmund Burke - Speech at Bristol Previous to the Election (1780) - Art is a partnership not only between those who are living but between those who are dead and those who are yet to be born. permalink
Edmund Burke - As to great and commanding talents, they are the gift of Providence in some way unknown to us. They rise where they are least expected. They fail when everything seems disposed to produce them, or at least to call them forth. permalink
Edmund Burke
Quotes found : 124 — (15 per page, this is page 1 of 9) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Please report any problems on this page! If you see any typos, incorrect attributions, deformed characters, or any other problem with this page, we want to fix it as soon
as possible. Please click here to report errors.
Note: Do not use titles in author searches, we don't use them, including president, senator, prime minister, king, queen, saint, pope, or doctor, or abbreviations thereof. See explanation here.
