“Gentlemen, the melancholy event of yesterday reads to us an awful lesson against being too much troubled about any of the objects of ordinary ambition. The worthy gentleman, who has been snatched from us at the moment of the election, and in the middle of contest, whilst his desires were as warm, and his hopes as eager as ours, has feelingly told us, what shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue.”

—  Edmund Burke

Speech at Bristol on declining the poll (9 September 1780), referring to a Mr. Richard Coombe.
1780s

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Edmund Burke270
Anglo-Irish statesman 1729–1797

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