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

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If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.
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It is by sympathy we enter into the concerns of others, that we are moved as they are moved, and are never suffered to be indifferent spectators of almost anything which men can do or suffer. For sympathy may be considered as a sort of substitution, by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in many respects as he is affected.
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One source of the sublime is infinity.
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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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It may be observed, that very polished languages, and such as are praised for their superior clearness and perspicuity, are generally deficient in strength.
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The nature of things is, I admit, a sturdy adversary.
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Where two motives, neither of them perfectly justifiable, may be assigned, the worst has the chance of being preferred.
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Those who attempt to level never equalize
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A great empire and little minds go ill together.
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Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.
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Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures.
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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.
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It is the love of the people it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army 168 and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience, without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber.
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It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.
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Gambling is a principle inherent in human nature.
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Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all it combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. In this partnership all men have equal rights but not to equal things.
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One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.
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Art is a partnership not only between those who are living but between those who are dead and those who are yet to be born.
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But whoever is a genuine follower of Truth, keeps his eye steady upon his guide, indifferent whither he is led, provided that she is the leader.
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Applaud us when we run, Console us when we fall, Cheer us when we recover.
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