Edmund Burke

All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice. ”

Free trade is not based on utility but on justice. ”

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do. ”

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe. ”

Circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing color and discriminating effect. The circumstances are what render every civil and political scheme beneficial or noxious to mankind. ”

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority. ”

It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the public to be the most anxious for its welfare. ”

When the leaders choose to make themselves bidders at an auction of popularity, their talents, in the construction of the state, will be of no service. They will become flatterers instead of legislators; the instruments, not the guides, of the people. ”

Frugality is founded on the principal that all riches have limits. ”

If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived. ”