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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.

Edmund Burke

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
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.
EDMUND BURKE

Greatness Liberty Madness Possible Restraint Virtue Wisdom
The credulity of dupes is as inexhaustible as the invention of knaves.
EDMUND BURKE

Credit Invention Knife
This sort of people are so taken up with their theories about the rights of man that they have totally forgotten his nature.
EDMUND BURKE

Forget Man Nature People Right Theory
A coward’s courage is in his tongue.
EDMUND BURKE

Courage Coward Tongue
It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
EDMUND BURKE

Constitution Forever Freedom Mindset Passion
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

Breathe Corruption Important Law Refine
But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.
EDMUND BURKE

Age Economics Forever Success
By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.
EDMUND BURKE

Mistake Nation Power Small
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
It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare.
EDMUND BURKE

Anxiety Errors Loud Popular Public Welfare
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
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.
EDMUND BURKE

Dangerous Enemy Hope Law People Power Willing
History is a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn.
EDMUND BURKE

Born Death History Live Value
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
EDMUND BURKE

Evil Goodness Man Necessary
The greatest sin is to do nothing because you can only do a little.
EDMUND BURKE

Greatness Sin Yourself

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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