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It looks to me to be narrow and pedantic to apply the ordinary ideas of criminal justice to this great public contest. I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against a whole people.

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
Ordinary
Contest
Public
Contests
Justice
Apply
Ideas
Narrow
Looks
Criminal
Whole
Criminals
Great
Drawing
Pedantic
People
Method
Indictment

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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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Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.
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Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all.
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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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Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.
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Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit, and a series of unconnected arts. Though just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature.
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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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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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The nature of things is, I admit, a sturdy adversary.
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Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.
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No government ought to exist for the purpose of checking the prosperity of its people or to allow such a principle in its policy.
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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.
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True religion is the foundation of society. When that is once shaken by contempt, the whole fabric cannot be stable nor lasting.
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Free trade is not based on utility but on justice.
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There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief.
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The conduct of a losing party never appears right: at least it never can possess the only infallible criterion of wisdom to vulgar judgements-success.
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A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arises from words.
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Wars are just to those to whom they are necessary.
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