Edmund Burke Quotes
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Manners are of more importance than laws. The law can touch us here and there, now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation like that of the air we breathe in.
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Public life is a situation of power and energy; he trespasses against his duty who sleeps upon his watch, as well as he that goes over to the enemy.
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He had no failings which were not owing to a noble cause; to an ardent, generous, perhaps an immoderate passion for fame; a passion which is the instinct of all great souls.
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The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.
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An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.
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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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To speak of atrocious crime in mild language is treason to virtue.
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Jacobinism is the revolt of the enterprising talents of a country against its property.
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The concessions of the weak are the concessions of fear.
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A people who are still, as it were, but in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood.
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It is the interest of the commercial world that wealth should be found everywhere.
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There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.
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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 any thing but power for their relief.
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People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.
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What ever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man.
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They made and recorded a sort of institute and digest of anarchy, called the Rights of Man.
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A very great part of the mischiefs that vex the world arises from words.
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All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
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When Croft's 'Life of Dr. Young' was spoken of as a good imitation of Dr. Johnson's style, 'No, no,' said he, 'it is not a good imitation of Johnson; it has all his pomp without his force; it has all the nodosities of the oak, without its strength; it has all the contortions of the sibyl, without the inspiration.'
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Good order is the foundation of all things.
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Illustrious predecessor.
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Corrupt influence, which is itself the perennial spring of all prodigality, and of all disorder; which loads us, more than millions of debt; which takes away vigor from our arms, wisdom from our councils, and every shadow of authority and credit from the most venerable parts of our constitution.
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It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
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It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.