Memorable Quotations from Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke was an Irish-born British politician and writer, who was a member of Samuel Johnson's literary circle. His early writings involved aesthetics and philosophy. In 1765 he became private secretary to the Marquess of Rockingham (then prime minister) and entered Parliament. In Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770), he was the first to argue the merit of political parties. As a member of Parliament he called for conciliation with the American colonists and warned against taxing them unreasonably. Attempting to reform the British East India Company in the 1780s, he initiated the impeachment of Warren Hastings, governor general of India, on corruption charges. His most renowned work, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), expresses his opposition to the Revolution. Burke's writings significantly influenced 19th-century conservative political theory.