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Home  »  Respectfully Quoted  »  Edmund Burke (1729–97)

Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations. 1989.

 
NUMBER: 1765
AUTHOR: Edmund Burke (1729–97)
QUOTATION: But a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition, to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution.
ATTRIBUTION: EDMUND BURKE,Reflections on the Revolution in France,” 1790, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke, vol. 3, p. 440 (1899).
SUBJECTS: Statesman