Three Quotes from Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797) was an Irish member of the British parliament during the revolutionary war. He is widely considered the father of modern conservatism, and, while his particular brand of conservatism held onto the ideals of the British monarchy and parliament, he did have a few things to say. Here are three quotes that apply to modern conservatism:

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

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.

Even the old conservatism recognized the dangers that giving up moral responsibility puts power into the hands of government. When individuals lack the common sense of self-restraint, the only thing left is to allow government the dictatorship of morality.