It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest complainers for the publick to be the most anxious for its welfare.
– Edmund Burke, Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation (1769)

I take toleration to be a part of religion. I do not know which I would sacrifice; I would keep them both: it is not necessary that I should sacrifice either.
– Edmund Burke, Speech on the Bill for the Relief of Protestant Dissenters (1773-03-07)

People crushed by law, have no hopes but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much to hope and nothing to lose, will always be dangerous.
– Edmund Burke, Letter to Charles James Fox (1777-10-08)

The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion.
– Edmund Burke, Speech at a County Meeting of Buckinghamshire (1784)

Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe.
– Edmund Burke, Letter to M. de Menonville (October 1789)

Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to any thing but power for their relief.
– Edmund Burke, Letter to a Member of the National Assembly (1791)

The tyranny of a multitude is a multiplied tyranny.
– Edmund Burke, Letter to Thomas Mercer