Quote#Nature
A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way…
Quote byEdmund Burke · 1729–1797
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757), Introduction On Taste.
English (original)
A definition may be very exact, and yet go but a very little way towards informing us of the nature of the thing defined.
— Edmund Burke
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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Parties in religion and politics make sufficient discoveries concerning each other, to give a sober man a proper caution against them all.
The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.
In vain you tell me that artificial government is good, but that I fall out only with the abuse. The thing! the thing itself is the abuse!
I need not excuse myself to your Lordship, nor, I think, to any honest man, for the zeal I have shown in this cause; for it is an honest zeal, and in a good cause. I have defended natural religion against a confederacy of atheists and …
These few have the passions of the one; and they unite to strengthen themselves, and to secure the gratification of their lawless passions at the expense of the general good.