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There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.

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
Wisdom
Possible
Belief
Acting
Steadiness
Evil
Believing
Believe
Safety
Men
Honest
Decision

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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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I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.
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Under the pressure of the cares and sorrows of our mortal condition, men have at all times, and in all countries, called in some physical aid to their moral consolations - wine, beer, opium, brandy, or tobacco.
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History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.
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The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
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It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
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Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear which generates true courage.
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Ambition can creep as well as soar.
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It has all the contortions of the sibyl without the inspiration.
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A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
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Evil prevails when good men fail to act.
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The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
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One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.
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Whenever government abandons law, it proclaims anarchy.
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Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy of superstition.
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Falsehood is a perennial spring.
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To give freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to guide it only requires to let go the rein. But to form a free government that is, to temper together these opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one work, requires much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and combining mind.
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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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Never, no never, did Nature say one thing, and wisdom another.
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Education is the cheap defense of nations.
Edmund Burke