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To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind.

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
Common
Disposition
Future
Complain
Past
Hopes
Possessors
Part
Complaining
Murmur
Power
Mankind
Dispositions
Live
Present
Lament
Greatest
Extravagant
Age
Conceive

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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I despair of ever receiving the same degree of pleasure from the most exalted performances of genius which I felt in childhood from pieces which my present judgment regards as trifling and contemptible.
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Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.
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War is the matter which fills all history and consequently the only, or almost the only, view in which we can see the external of political society is in a hostile shape: and the only actions to which we have always seen, and still see, all of them intent, are such as tend to the destruction of one another.
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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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Frugality is founded on the principal that all riches have limits.
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God has sometimes converted wickedness into madness and it is to the credit of human reason that men who are not in some degree mad are never capable of being in the highest degree wicked.
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Men have no right to what is not reasonable, and to what is not for their benefit.
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Evils we have had continually calling for reformation, and reformations more grievous than any evils.
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Freedom and not servitude is the cure of anarchy as religion, and not atheism, is the true remedy of superstition.
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Corrupt influence is itself the perennial spring of all prodigality, and of all disorder it loads us more than millions of debt takes away vigor from our arms, wisdom from our councils, and every shadow of authority and credit from the most venerable parts of our constitution.
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Knowledge of those unalterable Relations which Providence has ordained that every thing should bear to every other...To these we should conform in good Earnest and not think to force Nature, and the whole Order of her System, by a Compliance with our Pride, and Folly, to conform to our artificial Regulations.
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People crushed by law, have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws and those who have much hope and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous.
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An entire life of solitude contradicts the purpose of our being, since death itself is scarcely an idea of more terror.
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An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.
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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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Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.
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The greatest crimes do not arise from a want of feeling for others but from an over-sensibilit y for ourselves and an over-indulgence to our own desires
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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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Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.
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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.
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