"Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have a right that these wants should be provided for by this wisdom."

Edmund Burke Philosophy See all quotes by Edmund Burke →

React to this quote

More by Edmund Burke

“The art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.”

“Public life is a situation of power and energy; he trespasses against his duty who sleeps upon his watch, as well as he that goes over to the enemy.”

“I have been baptised and educated in the Church of England; and have seen no cause to abandon that communion. ... I think that Church harmonises with our civil constitution, with the frame and fashion of our Society, and with the general Temper of the people. I think it is better calculated, all circumstances considered, for keeping peace amongst the different sects, and of affording to them a reasonable protection, than any other System. Being something in a middle, it is better disposed to moderate.”

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

“In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But the works of malice and injustice are quite in another style. They are finished with a bold, masterly hand; touched as they are with the spirit of those vehement passions that call forth all our energies, whenever we oppress and persecute.”

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

Resonant Thoughts

"Inherent in human beings are possibilities which we now can't even entertain. Before the space launch, space travel to many of us was the stuff of fantasy, of science fiction. We know what it is to ex…"

— Werner Erhard

Literature1935

#knowledge

"You assumed that no other guarantees than those you asked were possible, and you determined deliberately, in cold anger, to starve out one third of the population of the city, to break the manhood of …"

— George William Russell

Literature1867–1935

#knowledge

"Tea heads are not like junkies. A junky hands you the money, takes his junk and cuts. But tea heads don't do things that way. They expect the peddler to light them up and sit around talking for half a…"

— William S. Burroughs

Literature1914–1997

#time

"If there is a sense of reality, there must also be a sense of possibility. To pass freely through open doors, it is necessary to respect the fact that they have solid frames. This principle, by which …"

— Robert Musil

Philosophy1880–1942

#wisdom