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It may be observed, that very polished languages, and such as are praised for their superior clearness and perspicuity, are generally deficient in strength.

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
Languages
Superior
Superiors
Generally
Deficient
Strength
Clearness
Language
Praised
May
Polished
Observed

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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The great Error of our Nature is, not to know where to stop, not to be satisfied with any reasonable Acquirement not to compound with our Condition but to lose all we have gained by an insatiable Pursuit after more.
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Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
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All the forces of darkness need to succeed ... is for the people to do nothing.
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The only training for the heroic is the mundane.
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Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear which generates true courage.
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Turn over a new leaf.
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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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The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
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Refined policy ever has been the parent of confusion, and ever will be so as long as the world endures. Plain good intention, which is as easily discovered at the first view as fraud is surely detected at last, is of no mean force in the government of mankind.
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Over-taxation cost England her colonies of North America.
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I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.
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It is the nature of tyranny and rapacity never to learn moderation from the ill-success of first oppressions on the contrary, all oppressors, all men thinking highly of the methods dictated by their nature, attribute the frustration of their desires to the want of sufficient rigor.
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Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
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Restraint and discipline and examples of virtue and justice. These are the things that form the education of the world.
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All virtue which is impracticable is spurious.
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Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new compositions, any bungler can add to the old.
Edmund Burke
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But a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition, to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution.
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To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
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Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power but they will never look to anything but power for their relief.
Edmund Burke
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A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.
Edmund Burke