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Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants.

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
Human
Humans
Contrivance
Provide
Wants
Wisdom
Government

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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Somebody has said, that a king may make a nobleman but he cannot make a gentleman.
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The marketplace obliges men, whether they will or not, in pursuing their own selfish interests, to connect the general good with their own individual success.
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Next to love, Sympathy is the divinest passion of the human heart.
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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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Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.
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Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
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To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
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The great difference between the real leader and the pretender is that the one sees into the future, while the other regards only the present the one lives by the day, and acts upon expediency the other acts on enduring principles and for the immortality.
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Men have no right to put the well-being of the present generation wholly out of the question. Perhaps the only moral trust with any certainty in our hands is the care of our own time.
Edmund Burke
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It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.
Edmund Burke
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Nothing less will content me, than wholeAmerica.
Edmund Burke
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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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Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.
Edmund Burke
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Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young peoples, and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation.
Edmund Burke
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Good order is the foundation of all things.
Edmund Burke
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I have been told by an eminent bookseller, that in no branch of his business , after tracts of popular devotion, were so many books as those on the law exported to the Plantations .
Edmund Burke
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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.
Edmund Burke
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Spain: A whale stranded upon the coast of Europe.
Edmund Burke
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Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling it never forgives preaching of a new gospel.
Edmund Burke
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A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
Edmund Burke