Edmund Burke Quotes About Liberty
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We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.
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Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.
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The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.
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Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.
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That the greatest security of the people, against the encroachments and usurpations of their superiors, is to keep the Spirit of Liberty constantly awake, is an undeniable truth
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The liberty I mean is social freedom. It is that state of things in which liberty is secured by the equality of restraint. A constitution of things in which the liberty of no one man, and no body of men, and no number of men, can find means to trespass on the liberty of any person, or any description of persons, in the society. This kind of liberty is, indeed, but another name for justice.
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Liberty, without wisdom, is license.
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It is better to cherish virtue and humanity, by leaving much to free will, even with some loss of the object , than to attempt to make men mere machines and instruments of political benevolence. The world on the whole will gain by a liberty, without which virtue cannot exist.
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Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement. No sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity. The cause of civil liberty and civil government gains as little as that of religion by this confusion of duties. Those who quit their proper character to assume what does not belong to them are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave and of the character they assume.
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Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
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The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
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The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.
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Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.
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They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.
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The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
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No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
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My vigour relents. I pardon something to the spirit of liberty.
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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
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Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
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Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites…in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
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The distinguishing part of our constitution is its liberty. To preserve that liberty inviolate, is the peculiar duty and proper trust of a member of the house of commons. But the liberty, the only liberty I mean, is a liberty connected with order, and that not only exists with order and virtue, but cannot exist at all without them. It inheres in good and steady government, as in its substance and vital principle.
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But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
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Abstract liberty, like other mere abstractions, is not to be found.
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The moment you abate anything from the full rights of men to each govern himself, and suffer any artificial positive limitation upon those rights, from that moment the whole organization of government becomes a consideration of convenience.
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Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.
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To give freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to guide; it only requires to let go the rein. But to form a free government; that is, to temper together these opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one work, requires much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and combining mind.
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The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
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It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
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Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.
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All that needs to be done for evil to prevail is good men doing nothing.
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