"To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely."
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Quote collection
Edmund Burke quotes (page 2 of 25)
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"Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling... When danger or pain press too nearly, they are incapable of giving any delight, and are simply terrible; but at certain distances, and with certain modifications, they may be, and they are, delightful, as we every day experience."
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"Passion for fame: A passion which is the instinct of all great souls."
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"People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors."
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"Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites."
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"But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint."
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"Old religious factions are volcanoes burned out; on the lava and ashes and squalid scoriae of old eruptions grow the peaceful olive, the cheering vine and the sustaining corn."
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"Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government."
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"I cannot help concurring with the opinion that an absolute democracy, no more than absolute monarchy, is to be reckoned among the legitimate forms of government."
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"I dread our own power, and our own ambition; I dread our being too much dreaded... We may say that we shall not abuse this astonishing, and hitherto unheard-of-power. But every other nation will think we shall abuse it. It is impossible but that, sooner or later, this state of things must produce a combination against us which may end in our ruin."
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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."
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"Despots govern by terror. They know that he who fears God fears nothing else; and therefore they eradicate from the mind, through their Voltaire, their Helvetius, and the rest of that infamous gang, that only sort of fear which generates true courage."
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"There is no safety for honest men, but by believing all possible evil of evil men, and by acting with promptitude, decision, and steadiness on that belief."
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"The essence of tyranny is the enforcement of stupid laws."
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"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion."
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"People must be taken as they are, and we should never try make them or ourselves better by quarreling with them."
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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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"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing as they must if they believe they can do nothing. There is nothing worse because the council of despair is declaration of irresponsibility; it is Pilate washing his hands."
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"Our patience will achieve more than our force."
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"All men have equal rights, but not to equal things."
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