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Neither the few nor the many have a right to act merely by their will, in any matter connected with duty, trust, engagement, or obligation.

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
Trust
Matter
Right
Engagement
Many
Obligation
Connected
Merely
Neither
Duty

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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Contempt is not a thing to be despised.
Edmund Burke
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I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche, upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases.
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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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To innovate is not to reform.
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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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Politics ought to be adjusted not to human reasonings but to human nature, of which reason is but a part and by no means the greatest part.
Edmund Burke
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History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.
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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.
Edmund Burke
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Religion is for the man in humble life, and to raise his nature, and to put him in mind of a state in which the privileges of opulence will cease, when he will be equal by nature, and may be more than equal by virtue.
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He that borrows the aid of an equal understanding doubles his own he that uses that of a superior elevates his own to the stature of that he contemplates.
Edmund Burke
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Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young peoples, and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation.
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The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.
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Society is indeed a contract. ... It is a partnership in all science a partnership in all art a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection.
Edmund Burke
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Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.
Edmund Burke
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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.
Edmund Burke
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There are three estates in Parliament but in the Reporters' Gallery yonder there sits a Fourth Estate more important far than they all. It is not a figure of speech or witty saying, it is a literal fact, very momentous to us in these times.
Edmund Burke
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But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
Edmund Burke
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By this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways as there are floating fancies or fashions, the whole chain and continuity of the commonwealth would be broken. No one generation could link with the other. Men would become little better than the flies of a summer.
Edmund Burke
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No government ought to exist for the purpose of checking the prosperity of its people or to allow such a principle in its policy.
Edmund Burke
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It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere.
Edmund Burke