A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly Quotes

“Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, — in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity,—in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption,—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.”
― Edmund Burke, A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly

“Those who always labour, can have no true judgment.”
― Edmund Burke, A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly

“Plans must be made for men. We cannot think of making men, and binding nature to our designs.”
― Edmund Burke, A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly

“...where there is no sound reason, there can be no real virtue.”
― Edmund Burke, A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly

“I am unalterably persuaded, that the attempt to oppress, degrade, impoverish, confiscate, and extinguish the original gentlemen, and landed property of an whole nation, cannot be justified under any form it may assume.”
― Edmund Burke, A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly