Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in.
Edmund Burke: “Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady…”
Editor's note · Context
Burke discusses the pervasive impact of manners on human behavior and society.
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They look on the frame of their commonwealth, such as it stands, to be of inestimable value; and they conceive the undisturbed succession of the crown to be a pledge of the stability and perpetuity of all the other members of our…
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