Quote

Curiosity is the most superficial of all the affections it changes its object perpetually it has an appetite which is very sharp, but very easily satisfied, and it has always an appearance of giddiness, restlessness and anxiety.

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
Object
Affections
Anxiety
Sharp
Easily
Superficial
Changes
Appetite
Objects
Curiosity
Always
Affection
Appearance
Perpetually
Satisfied
Restlessness

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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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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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I decline the election. It has ever been my rule through life, to observe a proportion between my efforts and my objects. I have never been remarkable for a bold, active, and sanguine pursuit of advantages that are personal to myself.
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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.
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The power of perpetuating our property in our families is one of the most valuable and interesting circumstances belonging to it, and that which tends the most to the perpetuation of society itself.
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Contempt is not a thing to be despised.
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Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.
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The only training for the heroic is the mundane.
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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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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.
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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.
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This sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his nature.
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It is by sympathy we enter into the concerns of others, that we are moved as they are moved, and are never suffered to be indifferent spectators of almost anything which men can do or suffer. For sympathy may be considered as a sort of substitution, by which we are put into the place of another man, and affected in many respects as he is affected.
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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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All the forces of darkness need to succeed ... is for the people to do nothing.
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By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.
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The essence of tyranny is the enforcement of stupid laws.
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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 is, generally, in the season of prosperity that men discover their real temper, principles, and designs.
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In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature.
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