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I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.

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
Business
Observation
Persons
Planning
Person
Plan
Much
Lead
Never
Plans
Mended
Took
Observations
Seen
Inferior
Understanding
Inferiors

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If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived.
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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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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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The moment that government appears at market, the principles of the market will be subverted.
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Law and arbitrary power are at eternal enmity.
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Nnothing tends more to the corruption of science than to suffer it to stagnate. These waters must be troubled, before they can exert their virtues.
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Tyrants seldom want pretexts.
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Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures.
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To innovate is not to reform.
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The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
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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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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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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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Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.
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We set ourselves to bite the hand that feeds us.
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Expense, and great expense, may be an essential part in true economy. If parsimony were to be considered as one of the kinds of that virtue, there is, however, another and a higher economy. Economy is a distinctive virtue, and consists not in saving, but in selection.
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The moment you abate anything from the full rights of men to each govern himself, and suffer any artificial positive limitation upon those rights, from that moment the whole organization of government becomes a consideration of convenience.
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The ocean is an object of no small terror.
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Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
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Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants.
Edmund Burke