A great empire and little minds go ill together.
Edmund BurkeRead
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
Interpretation
Poorly designed laws can lead to oppressive circumstances for individuals, making them feel bound by tyranny.
Edmund Burke's quote highlights the danger posed by unjust or poorly conceived laws that infringe on individual freedoms. Such laws not only fail to protect citizens but can instead become tools of oppression, creating a tyrannical atmosphere where individuals are subject to restrictions that undermine their liberties and well-being.
In practice
During a debate on civil rights, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of just legislation.
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.
The soul is the effect and instrument of a political anatomy; the soul is the prison of the body
Not only does democracy make every man forget his ancestors, but also clouds their view of their descendants and isolates them from their contemporaries. Each man is for ever thrown back on himself alone, and there is danger that he may be shut up in the solitude of his own heart.
Say first, of god above or man below; what can we reason but from what we know.
The flip side of suicide is that it leaves a lingering question in the minds of the people who survived. It's like a cancer that's metastasized. The suicide is the cancer and the metastasis is all these people saying, Why? Why? Why?
In almost every case (where the United States has fought wars) our overwhelming commitment to freedom, democracy and human rights has required us to support those regimes that would deny freedom, democracy and human rights to their own people.
Being African didn't mean anything to me until later in my life.
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