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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.

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
Principles
Currents
Copper
Wisdom
Appear
Plausible
Moral
Valuable
Coin
Light
Air
Maxims
Firsts
Advantage
Coins
First
View
Morals
Equal
Narrow
Cursory
Views
Current
Portable

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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Unsociable humors are contracted in solitude, which will, in the end, not fail of corrupting the understanding as well as the manners, and of utterly disqualifying a man for the satisfactions and duties of life. Men must be taken as they are, and we neither make them or ourselves better by flying from or quarreling with them.
Edmund Burke
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Is it in destroying and pulling down that skill is displayed? The shallowest understanding, the rudest hand, is more than equal to that task.
Edmund Burke
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No men can act with effect who do not act in concert no men can act in concert who do not act with confidence no men can act with confidence who are not bound together with common opinions, common affections, and common interests.
Edmund Burke
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Guilt was never a rational thing it distorts all the faculties of the human mind, it perverts them, it leaves a man no longer in the free use of his reason, it puts him into confusion.
Edmund Burke
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An appearance of delicacy, and even fragility, is almost essential to beauty.
Edmund Burke
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It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere.
Edmund Burke
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Contempt is not a thing to be despised. It may be borne with a calm and equal mind, but no man, by lifting his head high, can pretend that he does not perceive the scorns that are poured down on him from above.
Edmund Burke
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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.
Edmund Burke
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Among precautions against ambition, it may not be amiss to take precautions against our own. I must fairly say, I dread our own power and our own ambition: I dread our being too much dreaded.
Edmund Burke
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Responsibility prevents crimes.
Edmund Burke
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It is undoubtedly true, though it may seem paradoxical,--but, in general, those who are habitually employed in finding and displaying faults are unqualified for the work of reformation.
Edmund Burke
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There ought to be system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.
Edmund Burke
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Education is the cheap defense of nations.
Edmund Burke
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To innovate is not to reform.
Edmund Burke
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Teach me, O lark! with thee to greatly rise, to exalt my soul and lift it to the skies.
Edmund Burke
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Liberty does not exist in the absence of morality.
Edmund Burke
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A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arises from words.
Edmund Burke
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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.
Edmund Burke
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You had that action and counteraction which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers draws out the harmony of the universe.
Edmund Burke
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Art is a partnership not only between those who are living but between those who are dead and those who are yet to be born.
Edmund Burke