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Vice incapacitates a man from all public duty it withers the powers of his under- standing, and makes his mind paralytic.

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
Makes
Mind
Withers
Men
Vice
Powers
Vices
Standing
Duty
Public

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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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.
Edmund Burke
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The great Error of our Nature is, not to know where to stop, not to be satisfied with any reasonable Acquirement not to compound with our Condition but to lose all we have gained by an insatiable Pursuit after more.
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.
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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.
Edmund Burke
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Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver and adulation is not of more service to the people than to kings.
Edmund Burke
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All virtue which is impracticable is spurious.
Edmund Burke
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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.
Edmund Burke
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One source of the sublime is infinity.
Edmund Burke
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Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it.
Edmund Burke
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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.
Edmund Burke
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The wisdom of our ancestors.
Edmund Burke
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The only training for the heroic is the mundane.
Edmund Burke
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Frugality is founded on the principal that all riches have limits.
Edmund Burke
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The greatest crimes do not arise from a want of feeling for others but from an over-sensibilit y for ourselves and an over-indulgence to our own desires
Edmund Burke
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For my part, I am convinced that the method of teaching which approaches most nearly to the method of investigation is incomparably the best since, not content with serving up a few barren and lifeless truths, it leads to the stock on which they grew.
Edmund Burke
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Whenever government abandons law, it proclaims anarchy.
Edmund Burke
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But a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition, to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution.
Edmund Burke
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Nobility is a graceful ornament to the civil order. It is the Corinthian capital of polished society.
Edmund Burke
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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.
Edmund Burke
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The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.
Edmund Burke