A great empire and little minds go ill together.
Edmund BurkeRead
You had that action and counteraction which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers draws out the harmony of the universe.
Interpretation
Conflict and struggle can lead to a greater harmony in the universe.
This quote by Edmund Burke suggests that in both nature and politics, opposing forces create a dynamic balance. The interplay of discordant powers, through their challenges and conflicts, ultimately gives rise to a harmonious state, indicating that struggle is essential for the creation of order and beauty in the universe.
In practice
In a lecture about the importance of conflict in history, one could use this quote to illustrate how opposing forces have led to societal progress.
A great empire and little minds go ill together.
To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.
Flattery corrupts both the receiver and the giver.
The hottest fires in hell are reserved for those who remain neutral in times of moral crisis.
Society can overlook murder, adultery or swindling; it never forgives preaching of a new gospel.
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
If a poor family falls on hard times in the woods, and no one is around to care, did it really happen?
Lying increases the creative faculties, expands the ego, lessens the friction of social contacts. . . . It is only in lies, wholeheartedly and bravely told, that human nature attains through words and speech the forebearance, the nobility, the romance, the idealism, that-being what it is-it falls so short of in fact and in deed.
All of us are made up of the stories that we listen to, the ones we disagree with and the ones that we agree with.
My health may be better preserved if I exert myself less, but in the end doesn't each person give his life for his calling?
It is not difficult to deprive the great majority of independent thought. But the minority who will retain an inclination to criticize must also be silenced....Public criticism or even expressions of doubt must be suppressed because they tend to weaken pubic support....When the doubt or fear expressed concerns not the success of a particular enterprise but of the whole social plan, it must be treated even more as sabotage.
The Christian "doctrines" are translations into our concepts and ideas of that which God has already expressed in language more adequate, namely the actual incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection
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