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Edmund Burke

British statesman famous for his oratory; pleaded the cause of the American colonists in British Parliament and defended the parliamentary system (1729-1797)

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No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.

– Edmund Burke

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By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.

– Edmund Burke

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When bad men combine, the good must associate else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

– 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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Fraud is the ready minister of injustice.

– Edmund Burke

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It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.

– Edmund Burke

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Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.

– Edmund Burke

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The distinguishing part of our Constitution is its liberty. To preserve that liberty inviolate seems the particular duty and proper trust of a member of the House of Commons. But the liberty, the only liberty, I mean is a liberty connected with order: that not only exists along with order and virtue, but which cannot exist at all without them. It inheres in good and steady government, as in its substance and vital principle.

– Edmund Burke

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The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.

– Edmund Burke

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Toleration is good for all, or it is good for none.

– Edmund Burke

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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

– Edmund Burke

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Bad law is the worst sort of tyranny.

– Edmund Burke

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In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But the works of malice and injustice are quite in another style. They are finished with a bold, masterly hand; touched as they are with the spirit of those vehement passions that call forth all our energies, whenever we oppress and persecute.

– Edmund Burke

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No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.

– Edmund Burke

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Our patience will achieve more than our force.

– Edmund Burke

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Ambition can creep as well as soar.

– Edmund Burke

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Better be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident security.

– Edmund Burke

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Applaud us when we run, Console us when we fall, Cheer us when we recover.

– Edmund Burke

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All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

– Edmund Burke

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A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman.

– Edmund Burke

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All that is necessary for the forces of evil to win in the world is for enough good men to do nothing.

– Edmund Burke

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History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.

– Edmund Burke

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An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.

– Edmund Burke

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We must not always judge of the generality of the opinion by the noise of the acclamation.

– Edmund Burke

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All government -- indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act -- is founded on compromise and barter.

– Edmund Burke

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All men have equal rights, but not to equal things.

– Edmund Burke

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Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.

– Edmund Burke

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Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.

– Edmund Burke

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Good order is the foundation of all things.

– Edmund Burke

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Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. Men have right that these wants should be provided for, including the want of a sufficient restraint upon their passions.

– Edmund Burke

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He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skill. Our antagonist in our helper.

– Edmund Burke

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Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises; for never intending to go beyond promises; it costs nothing.

– Edmund Burke

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I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone.

– Edmund Burke

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It is by imitation, far more than by precept, that we learn everything; and what we learn thus, we acquire not only more efficiently, but more pleasantly. This forms our manners, our opinions, our lives.

– Edmund Burke

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Men have no right to put the well-being of the present generation wholly out of the question. Perhaps the only moral trust with any certainty in our hands is the care of our own time.

– Edmund Burke

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Never despair but if you do, work on in despair.

– 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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Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls.

– Edmund Burke

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Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

– Edmund Burke

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The great inlet by which a colour for oppression has entered into the world is by one man's pretending to determine concerning the happiness of another.

– Edmund Burke

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The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts.

– Edmund Burke

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The wise determine from the gravity of the case the irritable, from sensibility to oppression the high minded, from disdain and indignation at abusive power in unworthy hands.

– Edmund Burke

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There is a boundary to men's passions when they act from feelings but none when they are under the influence of imagination.

– Edmund Burke

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There is a courageous wisdom; there is also a false, reptile prudence, the result not of caution but of fear.

– Edmund Burke

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There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity -- the law of nature, and of nations.

– Edmund Burke

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We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.

– Edmund Burke

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When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.

– Edmund Burke

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Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.

– Edmund Burke

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You can never plan the future by the past.

– Edmund Burke

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