quotations about law
A man with a club is a law-maker.
JACK LONDON
The Call of the Wild
The judge is nothing but the law speaking.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE
Moral and Religious Aphorisms
Laws are only as good as those that enforce them.
DAVID MERKEL
"Laws are Only as Good as Enforcement", Value Walk, March 25, 2016
Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse.
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right
The law no passion can disturb. 'Tis void of desire and fear, lust and anger. 'Tis mens sine affectu, written reason, retaining some measure of the divine perfection. It does not enjoin that which pleases a weak, frail man, but, without any regard to persons, commands that which is good and punishes evil in all, whether rich or poor, high or low.
JOHN ADAMS
Argument in Defense of the British Soldiers in the Boston Massacre Trials, Dec. 4, 1770
Bad laws are not forever and if we work together, we can change them.
EDWARD SNOWDEN
"NSA reform in the US is only the beginning", The Guardian, May 22, 2015
Laws change as the seasons.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Laws are made by the old, exceptions by the young.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Our legislature has continued to take the ridiculous approach of using a fire axe to open an unlocked door as opposed to merely using a more nuanced and slight adjustment to correct a perceived flaw in the current law.
DAVE OWEN
"Self-defense laws are vague", Dakota Student, January 27, 2017
Necessity has no law.
LATIN PROVERB
Use law and physic only for necessity; they that use them otherwise abuse themselves unto weak bodies, and light purses; they are good remedies, bad businesses, and worse recreations.
FRANCIS QUARLES
Enchiridon
The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we do to each other.
FRANK HERBERT
Dune Messiah
One of the advantages of having laws is the pleasure one may take in breaking them.
IAIN M. BANKS
The Player of Games
Men seldom understand any laws but those they feel.
GEORGE SAVILE
"Of Laws", A Character of King Charles the Second: and Political, Moral and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections
Almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so, and will follow it by suppressing opposition, subverting all education to seize early the minds of the young, and by killing, locking up, or driving underground all heretics.
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN
attributed, Religion in Science Fiction: The Evolution of an Idea and the Extinction of a Genre
One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
"Letter from a Birmingham Jail", 1963
If a man sets out to study all the laws, he will have no time left to transgress them.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
It would then be most admirably adapted to the purposes of justice, if laws properly enacted were, as far as circumstances admitted, of themselves to mark out all cases, and to abandon as few as possible to the discretion of the judge.
ARISTOTLE
Rhetoric
Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins.
JOHN LOCKE
Second Treatise of Government
Laws are not masters but servants, and he rules them who obeys them.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit