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Men love to hear of their power, but have an extreme disrelish to be told their duty.

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
Told
Hear
Power
Men
Love
Extreme
Extremes
Duty

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The love of lucre, though sometimes carried to a ridiculous excess, a vicious excess, is the grand cause of prosperity to all States.
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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.
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The essence of tyranny is the enforcement of stupid laws.
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I take toleration to be a part of religion. I do not know which I would sacrifice I would keep them both: it is not necessary that I should sacrifice either.
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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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True humility-the basis of the Christian system-is the low but deep and firm foundation of all virtues.
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When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators the instruments, not the guides, of the people.
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Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.
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Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.
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The great difference between the real leader and the pretender is that the one sees into the future, while the other regards only the present the one lives by the day, and acts upon expediency the other acts on enduring principles and for the immortality.
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Religion is essentially the art and the theory of the remaking of man. Man is not a finished creation.
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Over-taxation cost England her colonies of North America.
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I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.
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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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Humanity cannot be degraded by humiliation.
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Nothing is so rash as fear and the counsels of pusillanimity very rarely put off, whilst they are always sure to aggravate, the evils from which they would fly.
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Teach me, O lark! with thee to greatly rise, to exalt my soul and lift it to the skies.
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The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate.
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An appearance of delicacy, and even fragility, is almost essential to beauty.
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Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures.
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