Quote#Wisdom
There never was a bad man that had ability for good service
Quote byEdmund Burke · 1729–1797
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Speech in opening the impeachment of Warren Hastings (18 February 1788), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Volume the Tenth (1899), p. 59.
English (original)
There never was a bad man that had ability for good service.
— Edmund Burke
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Parties in religion and politics make sufficient discoveries concerning each other, to give a sober man a proper caution against them all.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
The writers against religion, whilst they oppose every system, are wisely careful never to set up any of their own.
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 …
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!
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.