We are not to form our judgment on those dispositions from the rules and principles of a court of justice, but from those of private discretion,--not looking for what would serve to criminate another, but what is sufficient to direct ourselves.
Burke suggests that judgments about individuals should be based on personal discretion rather than legal standards.
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More from Edmund Burke
I would not exclude alteration neither; but even when I changed, it should be to preserve.
If any of them should happen to propose a scheme of liberty soberly limited, and defined with proper qualifications, he will be immediately outbid by his competitors, who will produce something more splendidly popular.
They come from one who has been no tool of power, no flatterer of greatness, and who in his last acts does not wish to belie the tenor of his life.
Let us add, if we please, but let us preserve what they have left; and standing on the firm ground of the British Constitution, let us be satisfied to admire, rather than attempt to follow in their desperate flights, the aëronauts of…
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