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Manners are of more importance than laws. 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.

Edmund Burke

The essence of tyranny is the enforcement of stupid laws.
EDMUND BURKE

Essence Force Law Stupidity
Politics and the pulpit are terms that have little agreement.
EDMUND BURKE

Agreement Politics
Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director and regulator, the standard of them all.
EDMUND BURKE

Director Politics Prudent Standard Virtue
No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear.
EDMUND BURKE

Act Fear Mindset Passion Power Reason
Applause is the spur of noble minds, the end and aim of weak ones.
EDMUND BURKE

End Goal Mindset Noble Oneself Weakness
Justice is itself the great standing policy of civil society; and any eminent departure from it, under any circumstances, lies under the suspicion of being no policy at all.
EDMUND BURKE

Greatness Justice Policy
True religion is the foundation of society. When that is once shaken by contempt, the whole fabric cannot be stable nor lasting.
EDMUND BURKE

Foundation Religion Society Stability True
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

Color Determination Greatness Happiness Oppression Pretend
It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.
EDMUND BURKE

Humanity Justice Law Myself Reason
To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind.
EDMUND BURKE

Age Future Hope Kind Live Man Present
Good order is the foundation of all things.
EDMUND BURKE

Foundation Goodness One Liner
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

Creator Government Law Nation Nature
I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche, upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases.
EDMUND BURKE

Assumption Country Himself Man
The first and simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind, is curiosity.
EDMUND BURKE

Curiosity Discover Human Kind Simplicity
Nothing turns out to be so oppressive and unjust as a feeble government.
EDMUND BURKE

Government Injustice Oppression
Hypocrisy can afford to be magnificent in its promises, for never intending to go beyond promise, it costs nothing.
EDMUND BURKE

Afford Beyond Cost Hypocrisy Promise

Manners are of more importance than laws. 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.

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Manners are of more importance than laws. 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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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