Edmund Burke Mind Quotations

Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.

The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

Facts are to the mind what food is to the body.

Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.

The march of the human mind is slow.

Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.

Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else; and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear which generates true courage.

A great empire and little minds go ill together.

The only kind of sublimity which a painter or sculptor should aim at is to express by certain proportions and positions of limbs and features that strength and dignity of mind, and vigor and activity of body, which enables men to conceive and execute great actions.

Flattery is no more than what raises in a man's mind an idea of a preference which he has not.

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

Contempt is not a thing to be despised. It may be borne with a calm and equal mind, but no man, by lifting his head high, can pretend that he does not perceive the scorns that are poured down on him from above.

Guilt was never a rational thing; it distorts all the faculties of the human mind, it perverts them, it leaves a man no longer in the free use of his reason, it puts him into confusion.

By looking into physical causes our minds are opened and enlarged; and in this pursuit, whether we take or whether we lose the game, the chase is certainly of service.

Government is the exercise of all the great qualities of the human mind.

Freedom without virtue is not freedom but license to pursue whatever passions prevail in the intemperate mind; man's right to freedom being in exact proportion to his willingness to put chains upon his own appetites; the less restraint from within, the more must be imposed from without.

Vice incapacitates a man from all public duty; it withers the powers of his under- standing, and makes his mind paralytic.

Religion is for the man in humble life, and to raise his nature, and to put him in mind of a state in which the privileges of opulence will cease, when he will be equal by nature, and may be more than equal by virtue.

I consider how little man is, yet, in his own mind, how great. He is lord and master of all things, yet scarce can command anything.

The only infallible criterion of wisdom to vulgar minds - success.

Good company, lively conversation, and the endearments of friendship fill the mind with great pleasure.

There ought to be system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.

Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young peoples, and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation.

It is from this absolute indifference and tranquillity of the mind, that mathematical speculations derive some of the most considerable advantages; because there is nothing to interest the imagination; because the judgment sits free and unbiased to examine the point. All proportions, every arrangement of quantity, is alike to the understanding, because the same truths result to it from all; from greater from lesser, from equality and inequality.

Power gradually extirpates for the mind every humane and gentle virtue.

The more accurately we search into the human mind, the stronger traces we everywhere find of the wisdom of Him who made it.

Some degree of novelty must be one of the materials in almost every instrument which works upon the mind; and curiosity blends itself, more or less, with all our pleasures.