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By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.

Edmund Burke

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Edmund Burke
Age: 68 †
Born: 1729
Born: January 12
Died: 1797
Died: July 9
Philosopher
Politician
Statesman
Writer
Dublin city
Nations
Inspirational
May
Even
Gnawing
Drown
Rats
Perseverance
Nation

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The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear.
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Turbulent, discontented men of quality, in proportion as they are puffed up with personal pride and arrogance, generally despise their own order.
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What is it we all seek for in an election? To answer its real purposes, you must first possess the means of knowing the fitness of your man and then you must retain some hold upon him by personal obligation or dependence.
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The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
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But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.
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There ought to be system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
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We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us.
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One source of the sublime is infinity.
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The only kind of sublimity which a painter or sculptor should aim at is to express by certain proportions and positions of limbs and features that strength and dignity of mind, and vigor and activity of body, which enables men to conceive and execute great actions.
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It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.
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Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.
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Power, in whatever hands, is rarely guilty of too strict limitations on itself.
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Vice incapacitates a man from all public duty it withers the powers of his under- standing, and makes his mind paralytic.
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Humanity cannot be degraded by humiliation.
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The most favourable laws can do very little towards the happiness of people when the disposition of the ruling power is adverse to them.
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Spain: A whale stranded upon the coast of Europe.
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Evils we have had continually calling for reformation, and reformations more grievous than any evils.
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Fellowship in treason is a bad ground of confidence.
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Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.
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Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.
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