Quote

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.

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
Ever
Regard
Regards
Judgment
Exalted
Childhood
Receiving
Genius
Romance
Pieces
Degree
Present
Performances
Pleasure
Despair
Contemptible
Felt
Degrees
Trifling

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The most favourable laws can do very little towards the happiness of people when the disposition of the ruling power is adverse to them.
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The only kind of sublimity which a painter or sculptor should aim at is to express by certain proportions and positions of limbs and features that strength and dignity of mind, and vigor and activity of body, which enables men to conceive and execute great actions.
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Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all.
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It is an advantage to all narrow wisdom and narrow morals that their maxims have a plausible air and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles. They are light and portable. They are as current as copper coin and about as valuable.
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Too much idleness, I have observed, fills up a man's time more completely and leaves him less his own master, than any sort of employment whatsoever
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When you fear something, learn as much about it as you can. Knowledge conquers fear.
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People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.
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Genuine simplicity of heart is a healing and cementing principle.
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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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Those who quit their proper character to assume what does not belong to them are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave and of the character they assume.
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Evil prevails when good men fail to act.
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All the forces of darkness need to succeed ... is for the people to do nothing.
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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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An appearance of delicacy, and even fragility, is almost essential to beauty.
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Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.
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Evils we have had continually calling for reformation, and reformations more grievous than any evils.
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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.
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Custom reconciles us to everything.
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Parliament is a deliberate assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole where, not local purpose, not local prejudices ought to guide but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole.
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Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.
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