Authors / Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke quotes

1729–1797 · Irish-born British statesman

Burke is the founding thinker of modern conservatism. His most-quoted sentence is one nobody can find in his works.

1 real · 1 not theirs

Really theirs

1 quotes traced to Edmund Burke's own work or a reliable witness.

Sourced

The only liberty I mean is a liberty connected with order.

Source: Speech at his arrival at Bristol (13 October 1774)

Not theirs

1 famous lines credited to Edmund Burke that are misquoted, unsourced or belong to someone else.

Not theirs

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

Actually: Not found in Burke. The closest real lines are his "When bad men combine, the good must associate" (1770) and John Stuart Mill's 1867 "Bad men need nothing more… than that good men should look on and do nothing."