Edmund Burke
Born in DublinBorn on 12th of January 1729
Died in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire
Died on 9th of July 1797
Quotes from Edmund Burke
'Whenever a separation is made '... More
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." This famous quote attributed to Burke exemplifies his sense of moral responsibility. He championed a benevolent, traditional political authority and today is seen as the architect of modern conservative thought.
Edmund Burke was born in Arran Quay, Dublin in 1729. His father was a Protestant lawyer and his mother a Catholic from County Cork . He studied law at Trinity College, Dublin where he set up the Edmund Burke Debating Club in 1747 which became part of what is now the oldest undergraduate society in the world. Burke graduated in 1748 and went to London in 1750 to study law. He left shortly afterwards, however, to travel around Europe and pursue his writing ambitions. An Anglican conservative his first published work in 1756 was a defence of the established social order. In 1757 he married Jane Nugent, a Catholic, and published a well received treatise on aesthetics which arguably began the trend from classicism to romanticism.
In 1765 Burke became private secretary to Lord Rockingham, the Prime Minister, and an MP in 1766, remaining in Parliament for virtually the rest of his life. Burke’s political philosophy sought to defend the British constitution and make the powerful accountable, though he saw dangers in democracy as most readily exemplified by the excesses of the French Revolution. His best selling 1790 opus Reflections on the Revolution in France was a best-seller provoking Thomas Paine to write The Rights of Man in reply.
Typical of Burke’s later approach to moral accountability was his pursuit of the impeachment of Warren Hastings , the governor general of Bengal, which led to the reform of the East India Company. Edmund Burke died on July 9, 1797, and was buried in St Michael's church of Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire.
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