Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their appetites. - Edmund Burke

Law and arbitrary power are in eternal enmity. Name me a magistrate, and I will name property; name me power, and I will name protection. It is a contradiction in terms, it is blasphemy in religion, it is wickedness in politics, to say that any man can have arbitrary power. In every patent of office the duty is included. For what else does a magistrate exist? To suppose for power is an absurdity in idea. Judges are guided and governed by the eternal laws of justice, to which we are all subject. We may bite our chains, if we will, but we shall be made to know ourselves, and be taught that man is born to be governed by law; and he that will substitute will in the place of it is an enemy to God.

All men that are ruined, are ruined on the side of their natural propensities.

It is better to cherish virtue and humanity, by leaving much to free will . . . than to attempt to make men mere machines and instruments of a political benevolence.