“The wisdom of our ancestors.”

—  Edmund Burke

Burke is credited by some with the first use of this phrase, in Observations on a Late Publication on Present State of the Nation (1769), p. 516; also in Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770) and Discussion on the Traitorous Correspondence Bill (1793)
1760s

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Edmund Burke 270
Anglo-Irish statesman 1729–1797

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