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To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to deprecate the value of freedom itself.

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
Freedom
Free
Deprecate
Obliged
Americans
Prove
Value
Ought
Values

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It is undoubtedly true, though it may seem paradoxical,--but, in general, those who are habitually employed in finding and displaying faults are unqualified for the work of reformation.
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A thing may look specious in theory, and yet be ruinous in practice a thing may look evil in theory, and yet be in practice excellent.
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It is by imitation, far more than by precept, that we learn everything and what we learn thus, we acquire not only more effectually, but more pleasantly.
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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 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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All the forces of darkness need to succeed ... is for the people to do nothing.
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This sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his nature.
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True humility-the basis of the Christian system-is the low but deep and firm foundation of all virtues.
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Thank God, men that art greatly guilty are never wise.
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It is the function of a judge not to make but to declare the law, according to the golden mete-wand of the law and not by the crooked cord of discretion.
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Is it in destroying and pulling down that skill is displayed? The shallowest understanding, the rudest hand, is more than equal to that task.
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To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
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The greater the power, the more dangerous the abuse.
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He who calls in the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own and he who profits by a superior understanding raises his powers to a level with the height of the superior standing he unites with.
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Those who quit their proper character to assume what does not belong to them are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave and of the character they assume.
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Equity money is dynamic and debt money is static.
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There is a wide difference between admiration and love. The sublime, which is the cause of the former, always dwells on great objects and terrible the latter on small ones and pleasing we submit to what we admire, but we love what submits to us: in one case we are forced, in the other, we are flattered, into compliance.
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In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind.
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The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
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Power, in whatever hands, is rarely guilty of too strict limitations on itself.
Edmund Burke