“In every well-governed state, wealth is a sacred thing; in democracies it is the only sacred thing.”

Preface to the Charter of Liberties and Frame of Government of the Province of Pennsylvania in America (5 May 1682).
Frame of Government (1682)

5.
The Law

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)
Context: Conscience is the most sacred thing among men. Every man has within him a still small voice, which tells him that nothing on earth can oblige him to believe that which he does not believe. The worst of all tyrannies is that which obliges eighteen-twentieths of a nation to embrace a religion contrary to their beliefs, under penalty of being denied their rights as citizens and of owning property, which, in effect, is the same thing as being without a country.

Source: Mason & Dixon (1997), Chapter 74

Prologue p. 6
The Sabbath (1951)

Q&A page at the Terry Goodkind Official Site http://www.prophets-inc.com/communicate/q_and_a.html
Context: People use democracy as a free-floating abstraction disconnected from reality. Democracy in and of itself is not necessarily good. Gang rape, after all, is democracy in action.
All men have the right to live their own life. Democracy must be rooted in a rational philosophy that first and foremost recognizes the right of an individual. A few million Imperial Order men screaming for the lives of a much smaller number of people in the New World may win a democratic vote, but it does not give them the right to those lives, or make their calls for such killing right.
Democracy is not a synonym for justice or for freedom. Democracy is not a sacred right sanctifying mob rule. Democracy is a principle that is subordinate to the inalienable rights of the individual.

"Reginald at the Theatre"
Reginald (1904)

[1998, Understanding Islam, World Wisdom, 45, 0-941532-24-0]
Spiritual life, Sense of the sacred