Edmund Burke

The rights of the people are every thing, as they ought to be in the true and natural order of things.

There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity — the law of nature, and of nations.

They defend their errors as if they were defending their inheritance.

Taxing is an easy business. Any projector can contrive new impositions, any bungler can add to the old.

Corrupt influence, which is itself the perennial spring of all prodigality, and of all disorder; which loads us, more than millions of debt; which takes away vigor from our arms, wisdom from our councils, and every shadow of authority and …

Frugality is founded on the principle that all riches have limits.

Never wholly separate in your Mind the merits of any Political Question from the Men who are concerned in it.

You have theories enough concerning the Rights of Men. It may not be amiss to add a small degree of attention to their Nature and disposition.

Your settlement may be at hand; But that it is still at some distance is more likely. The French may be yet to go through more transmigrations. They may pass, as one of our Poets says, “thro' many varieties of untried being,” before their …

You may have made a Revolution, but not a Reformation. You may have subverted Monarchy, but not recover'd freedom.

This day I heard from Laurence who has sent me papers confirming the portentous State of France—where the Elements which compose Human Society seem all to be dissolved, and a world of Monsters to be producd in the place of it—where …

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

[France is] a Country where the people, along with their political servitude, have thrown off the Yoke of Laws and morals.

The Africans had that claim on our humanity which could not be resisted, whatever might have been advanced by an hon. gentleman in defence of the property of the planters.

The African [slave] trade was, in his opinion, an absolute robbery. It therefore could not be a doubt with the House, whether it was proper to abolish it.

Nothing made a happy slave, but a degraded man. In proportion as the mind grew callous to its degradation, and all sense of manly pride was lost, the slave felt comfort. In fact, he was no longer a man. If he were to define a man, he would …

He was one of those who wished for the abolition of the Slave Trade. He thought it ought to be abolished on principles of humanity and justice.

Resolved to die in the last dike of prevarication.

An event has happened, upon which it is difficult to speak, and impossible to be silent.

There never was a bad man that had ability for good service.

One that confounds good and evil is an enemy to the good.

Religious persecution may shield itself under the guise of a mistaken and over-zealous piety.

The moment a sovereign removes the idea of security and protection from his subjects, and declares that he is everything and they nothing, when he declares that no contract he makes with them can or ought to bind him, he then declares war …

Those who give and those who receive arbitrary power are alike criminal; and there is no man but is bound to resist it to the best of his power, wherever it shall show its face to the world. It is a crime to bear it, when it can be …