Edmund Burke Quotes

A fixed rule may give rise to occasional deviations from justice; but these amount to nothing more than the price which every member of the community may be called upon to pay for the advantage of an enlightened code. No laws can be framed sufficiently comprehensive to embrace the infinite varieties of human action …

A good law is one that holds, whether you recognize it or not; a bad law is one that cannot, however much you ordain it.

Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is nothing else but reason....

We must never lose sight of the fact that the law has a moral foundation, and we must never fail to ask ourselves not only what the law is, but what the law should be.

There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men.

Law and Equity [justice] which God hath joined, but which man has put asunder.

To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice.

Nothing is so faulty as those laws which correct faults. He who obeys them because they are just obeys a justice which is imaginary and not the essence of law; it is quite self-contained, it is law and nothing more.

There is not, in the whole compass of human affairs, so noble a spectacle as that which is displayed in the progress of jurisprudence; where we may contemplate the cautious and unwearied exertion of a succession of wise men, through a long course of ages, withdrawing every case, as it arises, from the dangerous power of discretion, and subjecting it to inflexible rules.

That which is not just, is not Law; and that which is not Law, ought not to be obeyed.

The law is the public conscience.

There is nothing certain in the principles of jurisprudence.

The Dutch public has always been accustomed to being treated according to the letter of the law.

Let's create a legal system that can work.

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

Law makes long spokes of the short stakes of men.

Besides a happy policy as to civil government, it is necessary to institute a system of law and jurisprudence founded in justice, equity, and public right.

Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together.

We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either justice or right.

Law is order, and good law is good order.

Law is that which commands what is right and prohibits what is wrong.

Anyone who takes it upon himself ... to break a bad law, thereby authorizes everyone else to break the good ones.

Laws and institutions require to be adapted, not to good men, but to bad

And let no one apply to the king in any suit, unless he at home may not be worthy of law, or cannot obtain law.

The law of cases of necessity is not likely to be well furnished with precise rules; necessity creates the law, it supersedes rules; and whatever is reasonable and just in such cases, is likewise legal; it is not to be considered as matter of surprise, therefore, if much instituted rule is not to be found on such subjects.