Edmund Burke Quotes

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.

There is a higher law than the Constitution.

All men are by nature born equally free and independent.

The common Notions of Liberty are not from School Divines, but from Nature.

But assuming the same premises, to wit, that all men are equal by the law of nature and of nations, the right of property in slaves falls to the ground; for one who is equal to another cannot be the owner or property of that other.

The nation is formed through the law of nature alone. Government stems from the will of nation. The nation stands before all things and is the source of all things. Its will is always law. Above it and before it is but the law of nature alone. By virtue of its very existence, the nation is all things that it may be. The nation cannot surrender its right to a tyrant.

Thou shalt likewise know that according to Law, the nature of this universe is in all things a like.

Not in opinion but in nature is law founded.

To no human charter am I indebted for my rights.

Nature has made men free and equal. The distinctions necessary for social order are only founded on general utility.

The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.

All men are born equally free.

Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a be general natural law.

Custom, that is before all law; Nature, that is above all art.

If you violate Nature's laws you are your own prosecuting attorney, judge, jury, and hangman.

No law of nature, however general, has been established all at once; its recognition has always been preceded by many presentiments.

So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes.

We must dismiss the fallacious notion that white people can give anybody his freedom. A man is born free.

The sacred rights of mankind are not to be rummaged for among old parchments or musty records. They are written, as with a sunbeam, in the whole volume of human nature, by the hand of the divinity itself, and can never be erased or obscured by mortal power.

I do not want to give you artificial and systematic laws, invented by man; only to bring you back under the unique laws of nature and order, which command to the heart and do not tyrannize the free will.

All men must operate under one general law.

Institutions and laws, when they are in conformity with the natural law and ordered to the common good, are the guarantees of people's freedom and of the promotion of that freedom …

We can not subscribe to one law for the weak and another law for the strong; one law for us, another for our opponents.

The law of nature is so unalterable that it cannot be changed by God himself.