The pretexts are always found in some spacious appearance of a real good.

We do not draw the moral lessons we might from history ... In history a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind ... History consists, for the greater part, of the miseries brought upon the world by pride, ambition, avarice, revenge, lust, sedition, hypocrisy, ungoverned zeal, and all the train of disorderly appetites ... These vices are the causes of those storms. Religion, morals, laws, prerogative, privileges, liberties, rights of men, are the pretexts. The pretexts are always found in some spacious appearance of a real good. - E. Burke