15 Edmund Burke Quotes on Freedom

Edmund Burke quotes on freedom

17. The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

18. Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

57. Reflect how you are to govern a people who think they ought to be free, and think they are not. Your scheme yields no revenue; it yields nothing but discontent, disorder, disobedience; and such is the state of America, that after wading up to your eyes in blood, you could only end just where you begun; that is, to tax where no revenue is to be found, to - my voice fails me; my inclination indeed carries me no farther - all is confusion beyond it.

67. Through a wise and salutary neglect [of the colonies], a generous nature has been suffered to take her own way to perfection; when I reflect upon these effects, when I see how profitable they have been to us, I feel all the pride of power sink and all presumption in the wisdom of human contrivances melt and die away within me. My vigour relents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.

68. The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.

70. Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.

76. Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy for superstition.

79. Deny them [the colonies] this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond, which originally made, and must still preserve the unity of the empire.

83. All who have ever written on government are unanimous, that among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.

84. The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts.

85. Liberty, too, must be limited in order to be possessed.

86. If any ask me what a free Government is, I answer, that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think so, - and that they, and not I, are the natural, lawful, and competent judges of this matter.

114. 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.

134. 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.

150. If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.