Edmund Burke

"I would rather sleep in the southern corner of a little country churchyard than in the tombs of the Capulets."

"Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants."

"Well is it known that ambition can creep as well as soar."

"No passion so effectively robs the mind of its powers of acting and reasoning as fear."

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

"Never despair but if you do work on in despair."

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

"Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement."

"Mere parsimony is not economy . . . expense and great expense may be an essential part of true economy."

"Adversity is a severe instructor. ... He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist is our helper."

"He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skills. Our antagonist is our helper."

"Ambition can creep as well as soar."

"History consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetites, which shake the public with the same —“troublous storms that toss The private state, and render life unsweet.”These vices are the causes of those storms. Religion, morals, laws, prerogatives, privileges, liberties, rights of men, are the pretexts."

"A representative owes not just his industry but his judgement"

"It is generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles and design."

"I have not yet lost a feeling of wonder, and of delight, that the delicate motion should reside in all the things around us, revealing itself only to him who looks for it."

"He that accuses all mankind of corruption ought to remember that he is sure to convict only one."

"A conscientious man would be cautious how he dealt in blood."

"Certainly, Gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinions high respect; their business unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his /pleasure, his satisfactions, to theirs/, --- and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgement, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure, --- no, nor from the law and the Constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your Representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgement; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinions."

"Our patience will achieve more than our force."