Geburtstag: 12. Januar 1729
Todesdatum: 9. Juli 1797
Andere Namen: ਐਡਮੰਡ ਬਰਕੀ, Эдмунд Берк
Edmund Burke war ein irisch-britischer Schriftsteller, Staatsphilosoph und Politiker in der Zeit der Aufklärung. Er gilt als geistiger Vater des Konservatismus.
Betrachtungen über die Französische Revolution
"People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors." - Reflections on the Revolution in France. 2nd edition. London 1790, p. 47-48 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=Vn0OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA247
Betrachtungen über die Französische Revolution
"Wenn Unterthanen Rebellen aus Grundsätzen seyn wollen, so werden Könige aus Staatsklugheit Tyrannen seyn." - Betrachtungen über die französische Revolution, nach dem Englischen des Herrn Burke von Friedrich von Gentz. Stuttgart und Leipzig 1836, S. 142 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=aisIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA142
"Kings will be tyrants from policy, when subjects are rebels from principle." - Reflections on the Revolution in France. p. 116 books.google https://books.google.de/books?id=Vn0OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA116&dq=tyrants
Betrachtungen über die französische Revolution, Frankfurt am Main 1967, S. 163
Reden, 1775
"It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people." - On Conciliation with America. House of Commons, March 22, 1775
Reden, 1784
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion." - Speech at a County Meeting of Buckinghamshire 1784
Betrachtungen über die französische Revolution, nach dem Englischen des Herrn Burke von Friedrich von Gentz. Stuttgart und Leipzig 1836, S. 237 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=aisIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA237
"Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society." - Reflections on the Revolution in France. 2nd edition. London 1790, p. 205 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=Vn0OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA205
Betrachtungen über die Französische Revolution
"A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman." - Reflections on the Revolution in France. 2nd edition. London 1790, p. 231 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=Vn0OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA231
Betrachtungen über die Französische Revolution
"We know, and it is our pride to know, that man is by his constitution a religious animal;" - Reflections on the Revolution in France. 2nd edition. London 1790, p. 135 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=Vn0OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA135
letzter Zwischentitel im Hollywood-Film "Tränen der Sonne" (2003), imdb https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0314353/quotes
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - :en:Edmund Burke#Disputed
Zweifelhaft
Betrachtungen über die französische Revolution, nach dem Englischen des Herrn Burke von Friedrich von Gentz. Stuttgart und Leipzig 1836, S. 174 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=aisIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA174
"[...] homage to the institutor, and author and protector of civil society ; without which civil society man could not by any possibility arrive at the perfection of which his nature is capable, [...]" - Reflections on the Revolution in France. 2nd edition. London 1790, p. 146 books.google http://books.google.de/books?id=Vn0OAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA146
This is probably the most quoted statement attributed to Burke, and an extraordinary number of variants of it exist, but all without any definite original source. They closely resemble remarks known to have been made by the Utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill, in an address at the University of St. Andrew (1 February 1867) http://books.google.com/books?id=DFNAAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA36&dq=%22Bad+men+need+nothing+more+to+compass+their+ends,+than+that+good+men+should+look+on+and+do+nothing%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=RUh5U6qWBLSysQT0vYGAAw&ved=0CEEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22Bad%20men%20need%20nothing%20more%20to%20compass%20their%20ends%2C%20than%20that%20good%20men%20should%20look%20on%20and%20do%20nothing%22&f=false : Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. The very extensively used remarks attributed to Burke might be based on a paraphrase of some of his ideas, but he is not known to have ever declared them in so succinct a manner in any of his writings. It has been suggested that they may have been adapted from these lines of Burke's in his Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents http://oll.libertyfund.org/Texts/LFBooks/Burke0061/SelectWorks/HTMLs/0005-01_Pt02_Thoughts.html (1770): "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle." (see above)
:This purported quote bears a resemblance to the narrated theme of Sergei Bondarchuk's Soviet film adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, produced in 1966. In it the narrator declares "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing", although since the original is in Russian various translations to English are possible. This purported quote also bears resemblance to a quote widely attributed to Plato, that said "The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." It also bears resemblance to what Albert Einstein wrote as part of his tribute to Pablo Casals: "The world is in greater peril from those who tolerate or encourage evil than from those who actually commit it."
: More research done on this matter is available at these two links: Burkequote http://www.tartarus.org/~martin/essays/burkequote.html & Burkequote2 http://www.tartarus.org/~martin/essays/burkequote2.html — as the information at these links indicate, there are many variants of this statement, probably because there is no known original by Burke. In addition, an exhaustive examination of this quote has been done at the following link: QuoteInvestigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/12/04/good-men-do/.
Disputed
Variante: The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing
Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791)
Kontext: 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.
Final Speech at the Trial of Warren Hastings, 28 May 1794; in The Works of the Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke, vol. 8 (1877) 5th edition, p. 51
On the Impeachment of Warren Hastings (1788-1794)
Kontext: On one side, your lordships have the prisoner declaring that the people have no laws, no rights, no usages, no distinctions of rank, no sense of honor, no property; in short that they are nothing but a herd of slaves to be governed by the arbitrary will of a master. On the other side, we assert that the direct contrary of this is true. And to prove our assertion we have referred you to the institutes of Ghinges Khân and of Tamerlane: we have referred you to the Mahomedan law, which is binding upon all, from the crowned head to the meanest subject; a law interwoven with a system of the wisest, the most learned, and most enlightened jurisprudence that perhaps ever existed in the world. We have shown you, that if these parties are to be compared together, it is not the rights of the people which are nothing, but rather the rights of the sovereign which are so. The rights of the people are every thing, as they ought to be in the true and natural order of things.
Speech to the Electors of Bristol (3 November 1774); reported in The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (1899), vol. 2, p. 95
Kontext: Certainly, Gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinions high respect; their business unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasure, his satisfactions, to theirs,—and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own.
But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure,—no, nor from the law and the Constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
— Edmund Burke, buch A Vindication of Natural Society
A Vindication of Natural Society (1756)
Kontext: If pretended revelations have caused wars where they were opposed, and slavery where they were received, the pretended wise inventions of politicians have done the same. But the slavery has been much heavier, the wars far more bloody, and both more universal by many degrees. Show me any mischief produced by the madness or wickedness of theologians, and I will show you an hundred resulting from the ambition and villany of conquerors and statesmen. Show me an absurdity in religion, and I will undertake to show you an hundred for one in political laws and institutions. 'If you say, that natural religion is a sufficient guide without the foreign aid of revelation, on what principle should political laws become necessary? Is not the same reason available in theology and in politics? If the laws of nature are the laws of God, is it consistent with the Divine wisdom to prescribe rules to us, and leave the enforcement of them to the folly of human institutions? Will you follow truth but to a certain point?
— Edmund Burke, buch A Vindication of Natural Society
A Vindication of Natural Society (1756)
Kontext: Kings are ambitious; the nobility haughty; and the populace tumultuous and ungovernable. Each party, however in appearance peaceable, carries on a design upon the others; and it is owing to this, that in all questions, whether concerning foreign or domestic affairs, the whole generally turns more upon some party-matter than upon the nature of the thing itself; whether such a step will diminish or augment the power of the crown, or how far the privileges of the subject are likely to be extended or restricted by it. And these questions are constantly resolved, without any consideration of the merits of the cause, merely as the parties who uphold these jarring interests may chance to prevail; and as they prevail, the balance is overset, now upon one side, now upon the other. The government is, one day, arbitrary power in a single person; another, a juggling confederacy of a few to cheat the prince and enslave the people; and the third, a frantic and unmanageable democracy. The great instrument of all these changes, and what infuses a peculiar venom into all of them, is party. It is of no consequence what the principles of any party, or what their pretensions, are; the spirit which actuates all parties is the same; the spirit of ambition, of self-interest, of oppression, and treachery. This spirit entirely reverses all the principles which a benevolent nature has erected within us; all honesty, all equal justice, and even the ties of natural society, the natural affections. In a word, my Lord, we have all seen, and, if any outward considerations were worthy the lasting concern of a wise man, we have some of us felt, such oppression from party government as no other tyranny can parallel. We behold daily the most important rights, rights upon which all the others depend, we behold these rights determined in the last resort without the least attention even to the appearance or colour of justice; we behold this without emotion, because we have grown up in the constant view of such practices; and we are not surprised to hear a man requested to be a knave and a traitor, with as much indifference as if the most ordinary favour were asked; and we hear this request refused, not because it is a most unjust and unreasonable desire, but that this worthy has already engaged his injustice to another. These and many more points I am far from spreading to their full extent. <!-- You are sensible that I do not put forth half my strength; and you cannot be at a loss for the reason. A man is allowed sufficient freedom of thought, provided he knows how to choose his subject properly. Tou may criticise freely upon the Chinese constitution, and observe with as much severity as you please upon the absurd tricks or destructive bigotry of the bonzees. But the scene is changed as you come homeward, and atheism or treason may be the names given in Britain, to what would be reason and truth if asserted of China.
Second Speech on Conciliation with America (1775)
Kontext: The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear. <!-- Works of Edmund Burke Volume ii, p. 108
