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Evil prevails when good men fail to act.

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
Prevails
Fail
Failing
Evil
Action
Good
Men

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A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.
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Vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness.
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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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Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy of superstition.
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When you fear something, learn as much about it as you can. Knowledge conquers fear.
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It is for the most part in our skill in manners, and in the observations of time and place and of decency in general, that what is called taste by way of distinction consists and which is in reality no other than a more refined judgment.
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Pleasure of every kind quickly satisfies.
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As mankind becomes more enlightened to know their real interests, they will esteem the value of agriculture they will find it in their natural--their destined occupation.
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The march of the human mind is slow.
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There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings but none when they are under the influence of imagination.
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All that needs to be done for evil to prevail is good men doing nothing.
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Delusion and weakness produce not one mischief the less, because they are universal.
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All the forces of darkness need to succeed ... is for the people to do nothing.
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But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
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Though ugliness be the opposite of beauty, it is not the opposite to proportion and fitness for it is possible that a thing may be very ugly with any proportions, and with a perfect fitness for any use.
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The people of England well know that the idea of inheritance furnishes a sure principle of conservation and a sure principle of transmission, without at all excluding a principle of improvement.
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Learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.
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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.
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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.
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If you can be well without health, you may be happy without virtue.
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