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[N]o human institution can arrive at perfection, and the most that human wisdom can do, is to procure the same or greater good, at the expence of less evil.

— Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke On the Spirit of Patriotism (1736)

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More quotes by Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke

Truth lies within a little and certain compass, but error is immense.

Reflections upon Exile (1716)

Our world seems to be, in many respects, the bedlam of every other system of intelligent creatures.

The landed men are the true owners of our political vessel, the moneyed men are no more than passengers in it.

Some Reflections on the Present State of the Nation (1753)

I have read somewhere or other, — in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, I think, — that history is philosophy teaching by examples.

They (Thucydides and Xenophon) maintained the dignity of history.

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