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In a free country every man thinks he has a concern in all public matters,--that he has a right to form and a right to deliver an opinion on them. This it is that fills countries with men of ability in all stations.

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
Thinking
Free
Matters
Form
Countries
Reason
Concern
Matter
Speech
Country
Opinion
Fills
Right
Public
Deliver
Every
Ability
Stations
Men
Freedom
Thinks

More quotes by 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.
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It has all the contortions of the sibyl without the inspiration.
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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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That cardinal virtue, temperance.
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But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.
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Dogs are indeed the most social, affectionate, and amiable animals of the whole brute creation.
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A great empire and little minds go ill together.
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Nothing, indeed, but the possession of some power can with any certainty discover what at the bottom is the true character of any man.
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Custom reconciles us to everything.
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The most favourable laws can do very little towards the happiness of people when the disposition of the ruling power is adverse to them.
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Somebody has said, that a king may make a nobleman but he cannot make a gentleman.
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Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.
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The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate.
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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.
Edmund Burke
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Politics ought to be adjusted not to human reasonings but to human nature, of which reason is but a part and by no means the greatest part.
Edmund Burke
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There ought to be system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
Edmund Burke
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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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The cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judgment.
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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As the rose-tree is composed of the sweetest flowers and the sharpest thorns, as the heavens are sometimes overcast—alternately tempestuous and serene—so is the life of man intermingled with hopes and fears, with joys and sorrows, with pleasure and pain.
Edmund Burke