Edmund Burke

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

"Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director, the regulator, and the standard of them all."

"Our patience will achieve more than our force."

"He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill."

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

"Manners are of more importance than laws."

"Liberty, without wisdom, is not safe."

"Nothing is so fatal to religion as indifference."

"Despotism can govern by fear, but a free people require wisdom."

"Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment."

"There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue."

"Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body."

"To be attached to the subdivision, to love the little platoon we belong to in society, is the first principle of public affections."

"Beauty in distress is much the most affecting beauty."

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one."

"In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppression."

"The arrogance of age must submit to be instructed by youth."

"Ambition can creep as well as soar."

"It is our job to define and describe, not to judge or condemn."

"All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing."

"Falsehood and delusion are allowed in no case whatsoever."

"People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors."

"Good order is the foundation of all good things."

"Frugality is founded on the principal that all riches have limits."

"The apparent tendency of every new law is to increase penalties as they become less effectual."

"Every project of a polity, every régime of a government, every system of a set of fundamental laws, is to be tried by this one thing."

"Art is the shadow of humanity."

"But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue?"

"Solitude is the nurse of enthusiasm."

"Great empires and little minds go ill together."