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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
Powers
Vices
Standing
Duty
Public
Makes
Mind
Withers
Men
Vice

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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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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Free trade is not based on utility but on justice.
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The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear.
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When you find me attempting to break into your house to take your plate, under any pretence whatsoever, but most of all under pretence of purity of religion and Christian charity shoot me for a robber and a hypocrite, as in that case I shall certainly be.
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Wars are just to those to whom they are necessary.
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Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
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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.
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Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.
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The poorest being that crawls on earth, contending to save itself from injustice and oppression, is an object respectable in the eyes of God and man.
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Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.
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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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Gambling is a principle inherent in human nature.
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Dogs are indeed the most social, affectionate, and amiable animals of the whole brute creation.
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Whenever our neighbour's house is on fire, it cannot be amiss for the engines to play a little on our own.
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People crushed by law, have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws and those who have much hope and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous.
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Make the Revolution a parent of settlement, and not a nursery of future revolutions.
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Man is an animal that cooks his victuals.
Edmund Burke
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Contempt is not a thing to be despised.
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A man is allowed sufficient freedom of thought, provided he knows how to choose his subject properly.... But the scene is changed as you come homeward, and atheism or treason may be the names given in Britain to what would be reason and truth if asserted in China.
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The unbought grace of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise, is gone!
Edmund Burke