If the grain were separated from the chaff which fills the Works of our National Poets, what is truly valuable would be to what is useless in the proportion of a mole-hill to a mountain. – Edmund Burke
Some degree of novelty must be one of the materials in almost every instrument which works upon the mind; and curiosity blends itself, more or less, with all our pleasures. – Edmund Burke
The effect of liberty to individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations. – Edmund Burke
An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent. – Edmund Burke
Nevertheless, a maxim does not necessarily become a proverb. Many grubs never grow to butterflies; and a maxim is only a proverb in its caterpillar stage—a candidate for a wider sphere and longer flight than most are destined to attain. – “Proverbs Secular and Sacred,” The North British Review, February 1858