quotations about law
Justice is immortal, eternal, and immutable, like God himself; and the development of law is only then a progress when it is directed towards those principles which, like him, are eternal; and whenever prejudice or error succeeds in establishing in customary law any doctrine contrary to eternal justice, it is one of the noblest duties, gentlemen ... to show that an unjust custom is a corrupt practice, an abuse; and by showing this, to originate that change, or rather development in the unwritten, customary law, which is necessary to make it protect justice, instead of opposing and violating it.
LOUIS KOSSUTH
Select Speeches
Engaging with the law is fine in the short term, but true liberation from oppression will not come from the law. As history bears out, true liberation has always and will always come about in spite of the law, not with it.
JOHN WINSTEAD
"Law is too small to contain social justice", WKU Herald, March 23, 2016
He who dethrones the idea of law, bids chaos welcome in its stead.
HORACE MANN
Thoughts
The law itself is accused of iniquity, and impeached, like the orators of Athens when they have persuaded the assembly to pass unjust decrees.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
The people's awe and innate fear will hold injustice back by day, by night, so long as the people leave the laws intact, just as they are: muddy the cleanest spring, and all you'll have to drink is muddy water.
AESCHYLUS
Eumenides
In written laws, men ... make a difference between the letter and the sentence of the law: And when by the letter is meant whatsoever can be gathered from the bare words, 'tis well distinguished. For the significance of almost all words, are either themselves, or in the metaphorical use of them, ambiguous, and may be drawn in argument to make many senses, but there is only one sense of the law.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
Law hath dominion over all things, over universal mind and matter; For there are reciprocities of rights, which no creature can gainsay.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
Notwithstanding, for the more public part of government, which is laws, I think good to note only one deficiency; which is, that all those which have written of laws have written either as philosophers or as lawyers, and none as statesmen.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
Laws are but words. Spoken, they may be ineffectual as the air that bears them. Even when written, they are of no effect unless enacted by people who understand them and take them seriously.
ALAN KEYES
"A government of laws and not of elitist student bodies", Renew America, April 4, 2016
The trend towards throwing new laws at everything continues apace.
JOHN GARDNER
"When law is part of the problem", Oxford University Press blog, September 14, 2012
Anytime you live in a society supposedly based upon law and it doesn't enforce its own laws because the color of a man's skin happens to be wrong, then I say those people are justified to resort to any means necessary to bring about justice when the government can't give them justice.
MALCOLM X
Oxford Union Debate, Dec. 3, 1964
The law cannot save those who deny it but neither can the law serve any who do not use it. The history of injustice and inequality is a history of disuse of the law. Law has not failed--and is not failing. We as a nation have failed ourselves by not trusting the law and by not using the law to gain sooner the ends of justice which law alone serves.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON
Memorial Day remarks in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, May 30, 1963
We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
Songs of the Doomed
Laws are generally found to be nets of such a texture as the little creep through, the great break through, and the middle size are alone entangled in.
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
Essays on Men and Manners
There never was a law yet made, I conceive, that hit the taste exactly of every man, or every part of the community; of course, if this be a reason for opposition, no law can be executed at all without force, and every man or set of men will in that case cut and carve for themselves; the consequences of which must be deprecated by all classes of men, who are friends to order, and to the peace and happiness of the country.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Major-General Daniel Morgan
Laws, however divine in origin and institution, would be found of little coercion among men, were the administration of them not committed to mortals.
NORMAN MACDONALD
Maxims and Moral Reflections
Now, it is of great moment that well-drawn laws should themselves define all the points they possibly can and leave as few as may be to the decision of the judges; and for this several reasons. First, to find one man, or a few men, who are sensible persons and capable of legislating and administering justice is easier than to find a large number. Next, laws are made after long consideration, whereas decisions in the courts are given at short notice, which makes it hard for those who try the case to satisfy the claims of justice and expediency.
ARISTOTLE
Rhetoric
The law is a pretty bird, and has charming wings; it would be quite a bird of paradise if it did not carry such a terrible bill.
DOUGLAS JERROLD
The Wit and Opinions of Douglas Jerrold
When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.
NELSON MANDELA
Long Walk to Freedom
The law is more easily understood by few than many words. For all words are subject to ambiguity, and therefore multiplication of words in the body of the law is multiplication of ambiguity. Besides, it seems to imply (by too much diligence) that whosoever can evade the words is without the compass of the law.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan