20 Edmund Burke Quotes on Society

Edmund Burke quotes on society

4. It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the publick to be the most anxious for its welfare.

10. People crushed by law, have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much to hope and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous.

16. The individual is foolish; the multitude, for the moment is foolish, when they act without deliberation; but the species is wise, and, when time is given to it, as a species it always acts right.

48. Custom reconciles us to every thing.

66. A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.

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

77. All government - indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act - is founded on compromise and barter.

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

118. Good order is the foundation of all good things.

125. Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.

131. Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure - but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primaeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and the invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place. This law is not subject to the will of those, who by an obligation above them, and infinitely superior, are bound to submit their will to that law. The municipal corporations of that universal kingdom are not morally at liberty at their pleasure, and on their speculations of a contingent improvement, wholly to separate and tear asunder the bands of their subordinate community, and to dissolve it into an unsocial, uncivil, unconnected chaos of elementary principles. It is the first and supreme necessity only, a necessity that is not chosen, but chooses, a necessity paramount to deliberation, that admits no discussion, and demands no evidence, which alone can justify a resort to anarchy. This necessity is no exception to the rule; because this necessity itself is a part too of that moral and physical disposition of things, to which man must be obedient by consent or force: but if that which is only submission to necessity should be made the object of choice, the law is broken, nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed, cast forth, and exiled, from this world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion, and unavailing sorrow.

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.

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

136. The most important of all revolutions... a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions.

138. The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends most to the perpetuation of society itself. It makes our weakness subservient to our virtue; it grafts benevolence even upon avarice. The possession of family wealth and of the distinction which attends hereditary possessions (as most concerned in it,) are the natural securities for this transmission.

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

153. We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.

154. Manners are of more importance than laws... Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation like that of the air we breathe in.

163. What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.

169. Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling - it never forgives the preaching of a new gospel.