Edmund Burke Quotes on Freedom
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The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
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Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.
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Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy; as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy for superstition.
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Deny them [the colonies] this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond, which originally made, and must still preserve the unity of the empire.
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All who have ever written on government are unanimous, that among a people generally corrupt, liberty cannot long exist.
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The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts.
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Liberty, too, must be limited in order to be possessed.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.