Quote#Science & Reason
I need not excuse myself to your Lordship, nor, I think, to any…
Quote byEdmund Burke · 1729–1797
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: A Vindication of Natural Society (1756).
English (original)
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 divines. I now plead for natural society against politicians, and for natural reason against all three.
— Edmund Burke
More from Edmund Burke
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
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.
The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.
In vain you tell me that artificial government is good, but that I fall out only with the abuse. The thing! the thing itself is the abuse!
Parties in religion and politics make sufficient discoveries concerning each other, to give a sober man a proper caution against them all.
There are few with whom I can communicate so freely as with Pope. But Pope cannot bear every truth. He has a timidity which hinders the full exertion of his faculties, almost as effectually as bigotry cramps those of the general herd of …