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The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.

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
Firsts
Human
Humans
Simplest
First
Curiosity
Mind
Discover
Emotional
Emotion
Liberty

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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England and Ireland may flourish together. The world is large enough for both of us. Let it be our care not to make ourselves too little for it.
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He that borrows the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own he that uses that of a superior elevates his own to the stature of that he contemplates.
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Good company, lively conversation, and the endearments of friendship fill the mind with great pleasure.
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By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.
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Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants.
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I decline the election. It has ever been my rule through life, to observe a proportion between my efforts and my objects. I have never been remarkable for a bold, active, and sanguine pursuit of advantages that are personal to myself.
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Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power but they will never look to anything but power for their relief.
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Parliament is a deliberate assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole where, not local purpose, not local prejudices ought to guide but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole.
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Wars are just to those to whom they are necessary.
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All the forces of darkness need to succeed ... is for the people to do nothing.
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But a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition, to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution.
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Over-taxation cost England her colonies of North America.
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An entire life of solitude contradicts the purpose of our being, since death itself is scarcely an idea of more terror.
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Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.
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When you find me attempting to break into your house to take your plate, under any pretence whatsoever, but most of all under pretence of purity of religion and Christian charity shoot me for a robber and a hypocrite, as in that case I shall certainly be.
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The most important of all revolutions, a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions.
Edmund Burke
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The great inlet by which a colour for oppression has entered into the world is by one man's pretending to determine concerning the happiness of another.
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Delusion and weakness produce not one mischief the less, because they are universal.
Edmund Burke
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Government is the exercise of all the great qualities of the human mind.
Edmund Burke
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But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
Edmund Burke