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Though ugliness be the opposite of beauty, it is not the opposite to proportion and fitness for it is possible that a thing may be very ugly with any proportions, and with a perfect fitness for any use.

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
Thing
Opposites
Ugly
Beauty
Possible
Proportions
Though
Ugliness
Perfect
Fitness
Use
Proportion
May
Opposite

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If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived.
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It has all the contortions of the sibyl without the inspiration.
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A thing may look specious in theory, and yet be ruinous in practice a thing may look evil in theory, and yet be in practice excellent.
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Early and provident fear is the mother of safety.
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Delusion and weakness produce not one mischief the less, because they are universal.
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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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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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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.
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Of this stamp is the cant of, Not men, but measures.
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The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear.
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It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere.
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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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Education is the cheap defense of nations.
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Some degree of novelty must be one of the materials in almost every instrument which works upon the mind and curiosity blends itself, more or less, with all our pleasures.
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It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.
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Responsibility prevents crimes.
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The conduct of a losing party never appears right: at least it never can possess the only infallible criterion of wisdom to vulgar judgements-success.
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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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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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Poetry is the art of substantiating shadows, and of lending existence to nothing.
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