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To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.

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
Politics
Business
Given
Men
Love
Taxation
Taxes
Please
Wise

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Of all things, wisdom is the most terrified with epidemical fanaticism, because, of all enemies, it is that against which she is the least able to furnish any kind of resource.
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The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
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If any ask me what a free government is, I answer, that, for any practical purpose, it is what the people think so,and that they, and not I, are the natural, lawful, and competent judges of this matter.
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A nation is not conquered which is perpetually to be conquered.
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A nation without means of reform is without means of survival.
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The worthy gentleman who has been snatched from us at the moment of the election, and in the middle of the contest, whilst his desires were as warm and his hopes as eager as ours, has feelingly told us what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue.
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To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind.
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The truly sublime is always easy, and always natural.
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Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures.
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It is for the most part in our skill in manners, and in the observations of time and place and of decency in general, that what is called taste by way of distinction consists and which is in reality no other than a more refined judgment.
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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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He that accuses all mankind of corruption ought to remember that he is sure to convict only one.
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The march of the human mind is slow.
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Adversity is a severe instructor, set over us by one who knows us better than we do ourselves.
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The great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of the great.
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A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way towards informing us of the nature of the thing defined.
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He had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame a passion which is the instinct of all great souls.
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Knowledge of those unalterable Relations which Providence has ordained that every thing should bear to every other...To these we should conform in good Earnest and not think to force Nature, and the whole Order of her System, by a Compliance with our Pride, and Folly, to conform to our artificial Regulations.
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Learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.
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The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself.
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