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Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke Quotes

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Famous Edmund Burke Quotes

“I do not hesitate to say that the road to eminence and power, from an obscure condition, ought not to be made too easy, nor a thing too much of course. If rare merit be the rarest of all things, it ought to pass through some sort of probation. The temple of honor ought to be seated on an eminence. If it be open through virtue, let it be remembered, too, that virtue is never tried but by some difficulty and some struggle.”

IfsMadeCoursesEasyStruggleVirtueToo MuchConditionsGreatnessOughtHonorAll ThingsDifficultyRememberedMeritTemplesObscureEminenceProbation
Book:Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the proceedings in certain societies in London, relative to that event. In a letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Paris ... The seventh edition
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“Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts for objects of mere occasional interest may be dissolved at pleasure - but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, calico, or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence, because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature.”

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Book:Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)
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“It ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention.”

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Book:A Letter to a Noble Lord and Other Writings
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“A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate.”

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Book:The Works of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke, with a biographical and critical introduction, by Henry Rogers, and portrait after Sir Joshua Reynolds
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“There ought to be system of manners in every nation which a well-formed mind would be disposed to relish. To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.”

MindWellsCountryWould BeNationsOughtLovelyOur CountryMannersRelishCountry Love
Book:Reflections on the Revolution in France and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event
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“"War," says Machiavelli, "ought to be the only study of a prince;" and by a prince he means every sort of state, however constituted. "He ought," says this great political doctor, "to consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes ability to execute military plans." A meditation on the conduct of political societies made old Hobbes imagine that war was the state of nature.”

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Author:Edmund Burke
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“Reflect how you are to govern a people who think they ought to be free, and think they are not. Your scheme yields no revenue; it yields nothing but discontent, disorder, disobedience; and such is the state of America, that after wading through up to your eyes in blood, you could only end up where you begun; that is, to tax where no revenue is to be found... all is confusion beyond it.”

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Book:Speech on Conciliation with America
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“Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement. No sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity. The cause of civil liberty and civil government gains as little as that of religion by this confusion of duties. Those who quit their proper character to assume what does not belong to them are, for the greater part, ignorant both of the character they leave and of the character they assume.”

LittlesDoeCharacterGovernmentChristianCausesSoundVoiceTermChurchHealingLibertyGreaterHeardDutyOughtGainsAssumingCharityQuittingIgnorantConfusionAgreementCivil LibertiesPulpit
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Edmund Burke (Illustrated)
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“Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament.”

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Book:The Portable Edmund Burke
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