Quote

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.

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
Theory
Practice
Evil
May
Look
Looks
Specious
Thing
Ruinous
Excellent

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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Good order is the foundation of all things.
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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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History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.
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It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.
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It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere.
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The worthy gentleman who has been snatched from us at the moment of the election, and in the middle of the contest, whilst his desires were as warm and his hopes as eager as ours, has feelingly told us what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue.
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Wars are just to those to whom they are necessary.
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One source of the sublime is infinity.
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The traveller has reached the end of the journey!
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Whatever each man can separately do, without trespassing upon others, he has a right to do for himself and he has a right to a fair portion of all which society, with all it combinations of skill and force, can do in his favor. In this partnership all men have equal rights but not to equal things.
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It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
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Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.
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Nothing in progression can rest on its original plan. We may as well think of rocking a grown man in the cradle of an infant.
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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.
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A nation is not conquered which is perpetually to be conquered.
Edmund Burke
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But whoever is a genuine follower of Truth, keeps his eye steady upon his guide, indifferent whither he is led, provided that she is the leader.
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Ambition can creep as well as soar.
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I venture to say no war can be long carried on against the will of the people.
Edmund Burke
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When slavery is established in any part of the world, those who are free are by far the most proud and jealous of their freedom.
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.
Edmund Burke