Quote#Courage
In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and…
Quote byEdmund Burke · 1729–1797
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Speech at Bristol Previous to the Election (6 September 1780), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II (1855), pp. 158-159.
English (original)
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.
— Edmund Burke
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Parties in religion and politics make sufficient discoveries concerning each other, to give a sober man a proper caution against them all.
I need not excuse myself to your Lordship, nor, I think, to any honest man, for the zeal I have shown in this cause; for it is an honest zeal, and in a good cause. I have defended natural religion against a confederacy of atheists and …
These few have the passions of the one; and they unite to strengthen themselves, and to secure the gratification of their lawless passions at the expense of the general good.