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Edmund Burke



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



  • A State without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation.



  • A nation without the means of reform is without the means of survival.



  • Adversity is a severe instructor. He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens out skill. Out antagonist is our helper.



  • You can never plan the future by the past.



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



  • War never leaves, where it found a nation.



  • Mere parsimony is not economy... expense, and great expense,may be an essential part of true economy.



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



  • A very great part of the mischiefs that vex this world arises from words.



  • Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.



  • Custom reconciles us to everything.



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



  • The effect of liberty on individuals is that they may do what they please: we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations.



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



  • The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.



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



  • The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.



  • Beauty is the promise of happiness.



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



  • Well is it known that ambition can creep as well as soar.



  • Among a people generally corrupt liberty cannot long exist.



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



  • People will not look forward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestors.



  • Superstition is the religion of feeble minds.



  • All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice.



  • Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.



  • Dangers by being despised grow great.



  • No passion so effectively robs the mind of its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.



  • Education is the cheap defense of nations.



  • By gnawing through a dyke, even a rat may drown a nation.



  • What shadows we pursue!



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