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Manners are of more importance than laws. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe.

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
Breathe
Uniform
Importance
Courtesy
Debase
Laws
Uniforms
Vex
Constant
Corrupt
Exalt
Air
Operation
Soothe
Law
Steady
Refine
Like
Operations
Insensible
Manners
Purify

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of a summer.
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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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In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.
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Contempt is not a thing to be despised.
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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.
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No men can act with effect who do not act in concert no men can act in concert who do not act with confidence no men can act with confidence who are not bound together with common opinions, common affections, and common interests.
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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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Genuine simplicity of heart is a healing and cementing principle.
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I am convinced that we have a degree of delight, and that no small one, in the real misfortunes and pain of others
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To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.
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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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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.
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The march of the human mind is slow.
Edmund Burke
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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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By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.
Edmund Burke
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Nothing so effectually deadens the taste of the sublime as that which is light and radiant.
Edmund Burke
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The very name of a politician, a statesman, is sure to cause terror and hatred it has always connected with it the ideas of treachery, cruelty, fraud, and tyranny.
Edmund Burke
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Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.
Edmund Burke
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The superfluities of a rich nation furnish a better object of trade than the necessities of a poor one. It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere.
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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