Q170: The White Horse

"[...] hasty and ad hoc decrees that addressed immediate national problems without taking the time to reflect on and consider the eternal principles of justice were fated to end in villainy and abuse.   Only those laws that had been founded on the eternal principles of justice, had stood the test of time, had been passed on from generation to generation, and had received the approval of the wisest counsellors should be enacted and enforced by a just king."

— Ben Merkle

— and —

"And though skies alter and empires melt,

This word shall still be true:

If we would have the horse of old,

Scour ye the horse anew."

— G. K. Chesterton

These (and some other recent quotes) have come from Ben Merkle's life of King Alfred the Great called The White Horse King.   I recommend it to you highly.