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Adversity is a severe instructor, set over us by one who knows us better than we do ourselves.

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
Instructors
Severe
Adversity
Better
Instructor

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.
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Responsibility prevents crimes.
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It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.
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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.
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Those who attempt to level never equalize
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The grand instructor, time.
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Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling it never forgives preaching of a new gospel.
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The person who grieves suffers his passion to grow upon him he indulges it, he loves it but this never happens in the case of actual pain, which no man ever willingly endured for any considerable time.
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It is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals that their maxims have a plausible air and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as copper coin and about as valuable.
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Of all things, wisdom is the most terrified with epidemical fanaticism, because, of all enemies, it is that against which she is the least able to furnish any kind of resource.
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Contempt is not a thing to be despised. It may be borne with a calm and equal mind, but no man, by lifting his head high, can pretend that he does not perceive the scorns that are poured down on him from above.
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When slavery is established in any part of the world, those who are free are by far the most proud and jealous of their freedom.
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There are three estates in Parliament but in the Reporters' Gallery yonder there sits a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech or witty saying, it is a literal fact, very momentous to us in these times.
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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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Good order is the foundation of all things.
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.
Edmund Burke
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The most important of all revolutions, a revolution in sentiments, manners and moral opinions.
Edmund Burke
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They [Americans] augur misgovernment at a distance and snuff the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.
Edmund Burke
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Vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.
Edmund Burke
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When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators the instruments, not the guides, of the people.
Edmund Burke