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In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind.

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
Great
Errors
Drawing
Materials
Mankind
Unrolled
Wisdom
Infirmities
Future
Infirmity
History
Volume
Past
Instruction

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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The individual is foolish the multitude, for the moment is foolish, when they act without deliberation but the species is wise, and, when time is given to it, as a species it always acts right.
Edmund Burke
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Responsibility prevents crimes.
Edmund Burke
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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.
Edmund Burke
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Not men but measures a sort of charm by which many people get loose from every honorable engagement.
Edmund Burke
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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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Turbulent, discontented men of quality, in proportion as they are puffed up with personal pride and arrogance, generally despise their own order.
Edmund Burke
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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.
Edmund Burke
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And having looked to Government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them.
Edmund Burke
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Hypocrisy is no cheap vice nor can our natural temper be masked for many years together.
Edmund Burke
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I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche, upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases.
Edmund Burke
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For as wealth is power, so all power will infallibly draw wealth to itself by some means or other and when men are left no way of ascertaining their profits but by their means of obtaining them, those means will be increased to infinity.
Edmund Burke
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Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all.
Edmund Burke
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Corrupt influence is itself the perennial spring of all prodigality, and of all disorder it loads us more than millions of debt takes away vigor from our arms, wisdom from our councils, and every shadow of authority and credit from the most venerable parts of our constitution.
Edmund Burke
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A thing may look specious in theory, and yet be ruinous in practice a thing may look evil in theory, and yet be in practice excellent.
Edmund Burke
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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.
Edmund Burke
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Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.
Edmund Burke
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Whenever government abandons law, it proclaims anarchy.
Edmund Burke
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Contempt is not a thing to be despised.
Edmund Burke
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Nothing is so rash as fear and the counsels of pusillanimity very rarely put off, whilst they are always sure to aggravate, the evils from which they would fly.
Edmund Burke
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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.
Edmund Burke