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Government is the exercise of all the great qualities of the human mind.

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
Mind
Qualities
Exercise
Quality
Government
Human
Humans
Great

More quotes by Edmund Burke

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The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught a priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science, because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate.
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A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arises from words.
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The truly sublime is always easy, and always natural.
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He was not merely a chip off the old block, but the old block itself.
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Neither the few nor the many have a right to act merely by their will, in any matter connected with duty, trust, engagement, or obligation.
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To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to deprecate the value of freedom itself.
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There is nothing in the world really beneficial that does not lie within the reach of an informed understanding and a well-protected pursuit.
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The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.
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To execute laws is a royal office to execute orders is not to be a king. However, a political executive magistracy, though merely such, is a great trust.
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In all forms of government the people is the true legislator.
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Next to love, Sympathy is the divinest passion of the human heart.
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Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.
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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.
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For there is in mankind an unfortunate propensity to make themselves, their views and their works, the measure of excellence in every thing whatsoever
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The true way to mourn the dead is to take care of the living who belong to them.
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The march of the human mind is slow.
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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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In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.
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Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.
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The wisdom of our ancestors.
Edmund Burke