The Works of Edmund Burke, with a Memoir, Volume 2Harper & Brothers, 1849 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
allies appear authority better body Burke called cause cerning church civil conduct consider constitution crown danger declaration disposition doctrine Duke Duke of Bedford Duke of Portland duty EDMUND BURKE effect empire enemy England errour Europe evil exist faction favour force France French French revolution friends give honour hope house of commons house of lords human interest Ireland jacobins JOSEPH JEKYL justice king kingdom labour least liberty Lord Lord Keppel Louis XVI majesty manner matter means ment merit mind ministers mode monarchy moral murder nation nature negroes never object opinion parliament party peace persons political present prince principles proceedings racter reason regard regicide religion republic revolution ruin sans-culottes sedition shew sort sovereign Spain spirit suffer suppose sure thing thought tion treaty virtue whigs whilst whole wholly wish
Popular passages
Page 104 - If a great change is to be made in human affairs, the minds of men will be fitted to it; the general opinions and feelings will draw that way. Every fear, every hope will forward it; and then they who persist in opposing this mighty current in human affairs, will appear rather to resist the decrees of Providence itself, than the mere designs of men. They will not be resolute and firm, but perverse and obstinate.
Page 202 - Had it pleased God to continue to me the hopes of succession, I should have been, according to my mediocrity, and the mediocrity of the age I live in, a sort of founder of a family: I should have left a son who, in all the points in which personal merit can be viewed, in science, in erudition, in genius, in taste, in honour, in generosity, in humanity, in every liberal sentiment and every liberal accomplishment...
Page 36 - I may assume, that the awful author of our being is the author of our place in the order of existence ; and that having disposed and marshalled us by a divine tactic, not according to our will, but according to his, he has, in and by that disposition, virtually subjected us to act the part which belongs to the place assigned us.
Page 32 - But, after all, what is this metaphor called a crown, or rather what is monarchy? Is it a thing, or is it a name, or is it a fraud? Is it 'a contrivance of human wisdom', or of human craft to obtain money from a nation under specious pretences?
Page 179 - To provide for us in our necessities is not in the power of government. It would be a vain presumption in statesmen to think they can do it. The people maintain them, and not they the people. It is in the power of government to prevent much, evil ; it can do very little positive good in this or perhaps in any thing else.
Page 36 - ... the presumed consent of every rational creature is in unison with the predisposed order of things. Men come in that manner into a community with the social state of their parents, endowed with all the benefits, loaded with all the duties, of their situation.
Page 203 - I would give a peck of refuse wheat for all that is called fame and honour in the world. This is the appetite but of a few. It is a luxury ; it is a privilege ; it is an indulgence for those who are at their ease. But we are all of us made to shun disgrace, as we are made to shrink from pain and poverty and disease. It is an instinct ; and under the direction of reason, instinct is always in the right.
Page 203 - I do not find him blamed for reprehending, and with a considerable degree of verbal asperity, those ill-natured neighbours of his who visited his dunghill to read moral, political, and economical lectures on his misery. I am alone. I have none to meet my enemies in the gate.
Page 32 - When we survey the wretched condition of man under the monarchical and hereditary systems of government, dragged from his home by one power, or driven by another, and impoverished by taxes more than by enemies. it becomes evident that those systems are bad, and that a general revolution in the principle and construction of governments is necessary.
Page 443 - The Scripture is no one summary of doctrines regularly digested, in which a man could not mistake his way ; it is a most venerable, but most multifarious, collection of the records of the divine economy ; a collection of an infinite variety, of cosmogony, theology, history, prophecy, psalmody, morality, apologue, allegory, legislation, ethics, carried through different books, by different authors, at different ages, for different ends and purposes.