edmund burke

“ This sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his nature. ”

“ No government could stand a moment, if it could be blown down with anything so loose and indefinite as an opinion of 'misconduct'. ”

“ Rage and frenzy will pull down more in half an hour, than prudence, deliberation, and foresight can build up in an hundred years. ”

“ He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves, and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper. ”

“ Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation. ”

“ Wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to names; to the causes of evil which are permanent, not to occasional organs by which they act, and the transitory modes in which they appear. ”

“ It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare. ”

“ It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear. ”