Edmund Burke

A thing may look specious in theory, and yet be ruinous in practice; a thing may look evil in theory, and yet be in practice excellent.

Edmund Burke

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

Edmund Burke

All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice.

Edmund Burke

All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.

Edmund Burke

All wealth is power, so power must infallibly draw wealth to itself by some means or other.

Edmund Burke

Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

Edmund Burke

Beauty is the promise of happiness.

Edmund Burke

Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions than ruined by too confident a security.

Edmund Burke

But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.

Edmund Burke

By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.

Edmund Burke