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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.

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
Practice
Evil
May
Look
Looks
Specious
Thing
Ruinous
Excellent
Theory

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to good.
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The moment you abate anything from the full rights of men to each govern himself, and suffer any artificial positive limitation upon those rights, from that moment the whole organization of government becomes a consideration of convenience.
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Men who undertake considerable things, even in a regular way, ought to give us ground to presume ability.
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Ambition can creep as well as soar.
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It is the love of the people it is their attachment to their government, from the sense of the deep stake they have in such a glorious institution, which gives you your army 168 and your navy, and infuses into both that liberal obedience, without which your army would be a base rabble, and your navy nothing but rotten timber.
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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.
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It has all the contortions of the sibyl without the inspiration.
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The more accurately we search into the human mind, the stronger traces we everywhere find of his wisdom who made it.
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Oppression makes wise men mad but the distemper is still the madness of the wise, which is better than the sobriety of fools.
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Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.
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In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.
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The great must submit to the dominion of prudence and of virtue, or none will long submit to the dominion of the great.
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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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A nation without means of reform is without means of survival.
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The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.
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To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
Edmund Burke
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To govern according to the sense and agreement of the interests of the people is a great and glorious object of governance. This object cannot be obtained but through the medium of popular election, and popular election is a mighty evil.
Edmund Burke
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The cause of a wrong taste is a defect of judgment.
Edmund Burke
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The whole compass of the language is tried to find sinonimies [synonyms] and circumlocutions for massacres and murder. Things never called by their common names. Massacre is sometimes called agitation, sometimes effervescence, sometimes excess sometimes too continued an exercise of revolutionary power.
Edmund Burke
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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.
Edmund Burke