Edmund Burke Quotes

Ordinary human laws are the means - however imperfect - by which we express our understanding of the enduring moral law.

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

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

To the laws all men show respect and deference, as without them peace and harmony would be supplanted by anarchy and terror; human laws being instituted for the express purpose of regulating our interests as individuals and nations, between man and man; and divine laws given of heaven, prescribing rules on spiritual concerns, for faith and worship

Politicians may do as they please, so long as they violate no rule of right, no principle of justice, no law of God; but in no world, in no order, or condition, have men the right to do wrong.

The natural law is, in essence, a profoundly 'radical' ethic, for it holds the existing status quo, which might grossly violate natural law, up to the unsparing and unyielding light of reason.

I totally reject and have rejected throughout my entire career the proposition that the end justifies the means or that a judge should decide cases based on a desire to reach a certain outcome.

The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the holy scriptures.. are found upon comparison to be really part of the original law of nature. Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.

The natural law is an instrument for progress, not a weapon of revolution.

The first requisite of civilization, therefore, is that of justice — that is, the assurance that a law once made will not be broken in favour of an individual. This implies nothing as to the ethical value of such a law.

The law does not generate justice. The law is nothing but a declaration and application of what is just.

Law is error, you see. It's an attempt to write down a lot of things everyone ought to know anyway.

The law functions as formal embodiment of a moral code, not as free-standing substitute for it.

Justice is the handmaiden of truth, and when truth dies, justice is buried with it.

Justice is the great interest of man on earth.

Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws.

Our human laws are but the copies, more or less imperfect, of the eternal laws, so far as we can read them.

I expect from our judges that their verdicts are also inspired by Talmudic law - and not only by common law or European justice systems.

So many laws argues so many sins.

Let me tell you what justice is. Justice is the law. And that man's feeble attempt to lay down the principles of deceny.

Ethics evolve naturally, and we trample upon them with laws created by reason and experience.

The law is not an end in itself, nor does it provide ends. It is preeminently a means to serve what we think is right.

Justice is the idea of God, the ideal of man, the rule of conduct writ in the nature of mankind.

I have always loved the law. It is the very foundation of our great country. It's the exceptional foundation of America.

If nature does not ratify law, then all the virtues may lose their sway.