Edmund Burke citáty

strana 6

„Nikdo nedělá větší chybu než ten, kdo nedělá nic v domnění, že to málo, co udělat může, nemá smysl.“

„Ti, kteří neznají historii, jsou odsouzeni ji opakovat.“

„Co je však svoboda bez moudrosti a bez ctnosti? Je to největší ze všech možných zel, neboť je to bláznovství, neřest a šílenství bez výchovy a omezení.“

„Žena není stvořena k obdivu všech, ale ke štěstí jednoho.“

„K vítězství zla stačí, když dobří lidé budou sedět se založenýma rukama.“

„Lidé, kteří se nikdy neohlížejí zpět, ke svým předkům, nebudou brát ohled ani na své potomky.“

„Má-li zlo triumfovat, potřebuje jediné – aby slušní lidé nedělali nic.“

„Demokracie se může lehce stát vládou darebáků“

„Jedinec je pošetilý, lidstvo moudré.“

„Společnost bez možnosti reformy je společnost bez možnosti zachování.“

„Král sice pozvedne muže do šlechtického stavu, ale gentlemana z něj neudělá.“

„Udržet charakter bylo vždy lehčí než jej obnovit.“

“Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.”

“The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.”

“The men of England — the men, I mean of light and leading in England.”

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

“Vice itself lost half its evil by losing all its grossness.”

“I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pains of others.”

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

“An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.”

“Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures.”

“It shews the anxiety of the great men who influenced the conduct of affairs at that great event, to make the Revolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery of future revolutions.”

“It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the Queen of France, then the Dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she just began to move in—glittering like the morning star, full of life, and splendor, and joy. Oh! what a Revolution! And what a heart must I have to contemplate without emotion that elevation and that fall! Little did I dream when she added titles of veneration to those of enthusiastic, distant, respectful love, that she should ever be obliged to carry the sharp antidote against disgrace concealed in that bosom; little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fallen upon her in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor, and of cavaliers. I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished for ever.”

“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.”

“There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity — the law of nature, and of nations.”

“Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new impositions, any bungler can add to the old.”

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

“In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But the works of malice and injustice are quite in another style. They are finished with a bold, masterly hand; touched as they are with the spirit of those vehement passions that call forth all our energies, whenever we oppress and persecute.”

“Jacobinism is the revolt of the enterprising talents of a country against its property.”

“There never was a bad man that had ability for good service.”

“It cannot at this time be too often repeated; line upon line; precept upon precept; until it comes into the currency of a proverb, To innovate is not to reform.”

“You can never plan the future by the past.”

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

“It is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals that their maxims have a plausible air; and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as copper coin; and about as valuable. They serve equally the first capacities and the lowest; and they are, at least, as useful to the worst men as to the best. Of this stamp is the cant of not man, but measures; a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honourable engagement.”

“The march of the human mind is slow.”

“It is the love of the people; it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you both your army and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience, without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber.”

“Mr. Burke talked in very high terms of Dr. Adam Smith; praised the clearness and depth of his understanding, his profound and extensive learning, and the vast accession that had accrued to British literature and philosophy from these exertions, and described his heart as being equally good with his head and his manners as peculiarly pleasing. Mr. Smith, he said, told him, after they had conversed on subjects of political economy, that he was the only man, who, without communication, thought on these topics exactly as he did.”

“Deny them this participation of freedom, and you break that sole bond, which originally made, and must still preserve the unity of the empire.”

“Hypocrisy, of course, delights in the most sublime speculations; for, never intending to go beyond speculation, it costs nothing to have it magnificent.”

“Falsehood has a perennial spring.”

“Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.”