Born January 12, 1729
Dublin, Ireland
Died July 9, 1797
Beaconsfield Estate, Buckinghamshire, England

Politician, political thinker, writer, public speaker

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
Portrait: Edmund Burke. Reproduced by permission of the Corbis Corporation (Bellevue).

Edmund Burke was the most widely respected British political thinker and speech writer of his time. As a politician and speaker, however, he lacked the ability to lead or bring men together. His ideas continue to find favor today, especially with conservatives who wish to preserve society's existing institutions. He is widely admired for his defense of those who are too weak to defend themselves.

Edmund Burke was born into a middle-class family in Dublin, Ireland, on January 12, 1729. He had a difficult relationship with his father, a Protestant attorney, but was close to his Roman Catholic mother who, he once reported, suffered from...