Law Quotes
Best selected law quotes
by some famous people of their times. These quotes
about law will motivate and inspire you and will make you much wiser about
the subject.
To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt. Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Our human laws are more or less imperfect copies of the external laws as we see them. James A. Froude
Written laws are like spider's webs; they will catch, it is true, the weak and the poor, but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful. Anacharsis
I would uphold the law if for no other reason but to protect myself. Thomas Moore
Some things are easier to legalize than to legitimate. Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort
The law is a sort of hocus-pocus science, that smiles in yer face while it picks yer pocket: and the glorious uncertainty of it is of more use to the professors than the justice of it. Charles Macklin
Where there is no law there is no transgression. Bible
Young lawyers attend the courts, not because they have business there, but because they have no business. Washington Irving
Laws are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made. Otto Von Bismarck
Whenever you wish to do anything against the law, Cicely, always consult a good solicitor first. George Bernard Shaw
Laws are felt only when the individual comes into conflict with them. Suzanne Lafollette
When one wanted one's interests looking after whatever the cost, it was not so well for a lawyer to be over honest, else he might not be up to other people's tricks. George Eliot
I think we may class the lawyer in the natural history of monsters. John Keats
I have spent all my life under a Communist regime, and I will tell you that a society without any objective legal scale is a terrible one indeed. But a society with no other scale but the legal one is not quite worthy of man either. Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Law school taught me one thing; how to take two situations that are exactly the same and show how they are different. Hart Pomerantz
The law isn't justice. It's a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be. Raymond Chandler
Our law very often reminds one of those outskirts of cities where you cannot for a long time tell how the streets come to wind about in so capricious and serpent-like a manner. At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete. Walter Bagehot
Certainly one of the highest duties of the citizen is a scrupulous obedience to the laws of the nation. But it is not the highest duty. Thomas Jefferson
The law often permits what honor prohibits. Bernard Joseph Saurin
The court is like a palace of marble; it's composed of people very hard and very polished. Jean De La Bruyere
Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them. H. L. Mencken
Laws and institutions, like clocks, must occasionally be cleaned, wound up, and set to true time. Henry Ward Beecher
The laws and the stage, both are a form of exhibitionism. Orson Welles
The wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting. Ralph Waldo Emerson
This is a court of law young man, not a court of justice. Oliver Wendell Holmes
The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular. Edward Gibbon
The law helps those who watch, not those who sleep. Proverb
The lawyer's truth is not Truth, but consistency or a consistent expediency. Henry David Thoreau
Every law is an infraction of liberty. Jeremy Bentham
All that makes existence valuable to any one depends on the enforcement of restraints upon the actions of other people. John Stuart Mill
The law is light. Bible
I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis on the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement. Calvin Coolidge
The law is simply expediency wearing a long white dress. Quentin Crisp
It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for law, so much as a respect for right. Henry David Thoreau
The law was made for one thing alone, for the exploitation of those who don't understand it, or are prevented by naked misery from obeying it. Bertolt Brecht
The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections. Alexis De Tocqueville
It is impossible for us to break the law. We can only break ourselves against the law. Cecil B. De Mille
When the severity of the law is to be softened, let pity, not bribes, be the motive. Miguel De Cervantes
In law, nothing is certain but the expense. Samuel Butler
A successful lawsuit is the one worn by a policeman. Robert Frost
No civilization would ever have been possible without a framework of stability, to provide the wherein for the flux of change. Foremost among the stabilizing factors, more enduring than customs, manners and traditions, are the legal systems that regulate our life in the world and our daily affairs with each other. Hannah Arendt
I know of no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their strict execution. Ulysses S. Grant
I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney. Samuel Johnson
In a democracy -- even if it is a so-called democracy like our white-Tlitist one -- the greatest veneration one can show the rule of law is to keep a watch on it, and to reserve the right to judge unjust laws and the subversion of the function of the law by the power of the state. That vigilance is the most important proof of respect for the law. Nadine Gordimer
Laws are not invented. They grow out of circumstances. Azarias
Bad laws are the worst form of tyranny. Edmund Burke
Law cannot persuade when it cannot punish. Saying
Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal. Friedrich Engels
People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have must to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous. Edmund Burke
Laws teach us to know when we commit injury and when we suffer it. Johnson
I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law. David Dinkins
Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some ordinance under which you can be booked. Robert D. Sprecht
I was never ruined but twice; once when I lost a lawsuit and once when I won one. Voltaire
The decisions of law courts should never be printed: in the long run, they form a counter authority to the law. Denis Diderot
I want to live perfectly above the law, and make it my servant instead of my master. Brigham Young
No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my own constitution; the only wrong what is against it. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. Martin Luther King Jr.
The only road to the highest stations in this country is that of the law. Sir William Jones
The trouble with law is lawyers. Clarence Darrow
Scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question. Alexis De Tocqueville
It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws. Theodore Roosevelt
Avoid lawsuits beyond all things; they pervert your conscience, impair your health, and dissipate your property. Jean De La Bruyere
The only laws of matter are those that our minds must fabricate and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter. James Clerk Maxwell
I say, break the law. Henry David Thoreau
The magistrates are the ministers for the laws, the judges their interpreters, the rest of us are servants of the law, that we all may be free. Marcus T. Cicero
Laws too gentle, are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed. Benjamin Franklin
The spirit of moderation should also be the spirit of the lawgiver. Charles De Montesquieu
Courts of law, and all the paraphernalia and folly of law cannot be found in a rational state of society. Robert Owen
The more corrupt the state, the more laws. Publius Cornelius Tacitus
Where the law ends tyranny begins. Henry Fielding
Christianity is part of the Common Law of England. Matthew Hale
He who goes to law for a sheep loses his cow. Spanish Proverb
Law and equity are two things which God has joined, but which man has put asunder. Charles Caleb Colton
Good men must not obey the laws too well. Ralph Waldo Emerson
A country survives its legislation. That truth should not comfort the conservative nor depress the radical. For it means that public policy can enlarge its scope and increase its audacity, can try big experiments without trembling too much over the result. This nation could enter upon the most radical experiments and could afford to fail in them. Walter Lippmann
Even an attorney of moderate talent can postpone doomsday year after year, for the system of appeals that pervades American jurisprudence amounts to a legalistic wheel of fortune, a game of chance, somewhat fixed in the favor of the criminal, that the participants play interminably. Truman Capote
To succeed in the other trades, capacity must be shown; in the law, concealment of it will do. Mark Twain
Law, without force, is impotent. Blaise Pascal
In a state where corruption abounds, laws must be very numerous. Publius Cornelius Tacitus
Rulers were made to be broken. Michael Isenberg
In effect, to follow, not to force the public inclination; to give a direction, a form, a technical dress, and a specific sanction, to the general sense of the community, is the true end of legislature. Edmund Burke
Those laws, being forged for universal application, are in perpetual conflict with personal interest, just as personal interest is always in contradiction with the general interest. Good for society, our laws are very bad for the individuals whereof it is composed; for, if they one time protect the individual, they hinder, trouble, fetter him for three quarters of his life. Marquis De Sade
The due process of law as we use it, I believe, rests squarely on the liberal idea of conflict and resolution. June L. Trapp
An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so. Mahatma Gandhi
Our demands are simple, normal, and therefore they are difficult to satisfy. All we ask is that an actor on the stage live in accordance with natural laws. Konstantin Stanislavisky
As soon as you begin to say ''We have always done things this way -- perhaps that might be a better way,'' conscious law-making is beginning. As soon as you begin to say We do things this way -- they do things that way -- what is to be done about it?'' men are beginning to feel towards justice, that resides between the endless jar of right and wrong. Helen M. Cam
Here lies one believe it if you can, who thought an attorney, was a honest man. Epitaph
It would be better to have no laws at all, than to have too many. Michel Eyquem De Montaigne
The severity of the laws prevents their execution. Charles De Montesquieu
The more laws the less justice. Proverb
No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law. How can it be within the law? The law is stationary. The law is fixed. The law is a chariot wheel which binds us all regardless of conditions or place or time. Emma Goldman
Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty. Henry M. Robert
Judges ought to be more leaned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue. Francis Bacon
Laws are not masters, but servants, and he rules them, who obeys them. Ward Becker
I said there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are as slaves. Jonathan Swift
Where the law is uncertain there is no law. Proverb
Laws are the sovereigns of sovereigns. Louis XIV
Whenever men take the law into their own hands, the loser is the law. And when the law loses, freedom languishes. Robert F. Kennedy
We should have learnt by now that laws and court decisions can only point the way. They can establish criteria of right and wrong. And they can provide a basis for rooting out the evils of bigotry and racism. But they cannot wipe away centuries of oppression and injustice -- however much we might desire it. Hubert H. Humphrey
The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue. Oliver Goldsmith
Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law. Oliver Goldsmith
Keep out of Chancery. It's being ground to bits in a slow mill; it's being roasted at a slow fire; it's being stung to death by single bees; it's being drowned by drops; it's going mad by grains. Charles Dickens
The United States is the greatest law factory the world has ever known. Charles Evans Hughes
Fish die when they are out of water, and people die without law and order. The Talmud
Who thinks the law has anything to do with justice? It's what we have because we can't have justice. William Mcilvanney
We may not all break the Ten Commandments, but we are certainly all capable of it. Within us lurks the breaker of all laws, ready to spring out at the first real opportunity. Isadora Duncan
When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken. Benjamin Disraeli
Possession is nine tenths of the law. Proverb
Ignorance of the law excuses no man from practicing it. Addison Mizner
Petty laws breed great crimes. Ouida
We enact many laws that manufacture criminals, and then a few that punish them. Benjamin Ricketson Tucker
Laws and customs may be creative of vice; and should be therefore perpetually under process of observation and correction: but laws and customs cannot be creative of virtue: they may encourage and help to preserve it; but they cannot originate it. Harriet Martineau
Are not laws dangerous which inhibit the passions? Compare the centuries of anarchy with those of the strongest legalism in any country you like and you will see that it is only when the laws are silent that the greatest actions appear. Marquis De Sade
The laws of each are convertible into the laws of any other. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Anybody who thinks talk is cheap should get some legal advice. Franklin P. Jones
The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime. Max Stirner
Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap. Let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges. Let it be written in primers, spelling books, and in almanacs. Let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in the courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation. Abraham Lincoln
The law is reason, free from passion. Aristotle
I have enforced the law against killing certain animals and many others, but the greatest progress of righteousness among men comes from the exhortation in favor of non-injury to life and abstention from killing living beings. Asoka
Somebody figured it out -- we have 35 million laws trying to enforce Ten Commandments. Earl Wilson
We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read. Mark Twain
Curse on all laws, but those that love has made. Alexander Pope
The law is only one of several imperfect and more or less external ways of defending what is better in life against what is worse. By itself, the law can never create anything better. Establishing respect for the law does not automatically ensure a better life for that, after all, is a job for people and not for laws and institutions. Vaclav Havel
An incompetent attorney can delay a trial for years or months. A competent attorney can delay one even longer. Evelle Younger
All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures should not be slain nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away. This is the pure unchangeable law. Sutrakritanga
Useless laws weaken the necessary laws. Charles De Montesquieu
Good laws make it easier to do right and harder to do wrong. William E. Gladstone
There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity -- the law of nature and of nations. Edmund Burke
The business of the law is to make sense of the confusion of what we call human life -- to reduce it to order but at the same time to give it possibility, scope, even dignity. Archibald Macleish
It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important. Martin Luther King Jr.
Law is a bottomless pit. John Arbuthnot
In cross examination, as in fishing, nothing is more ungainly than a fisherman pulled into the water by his catch. Louis Nizer
We eagerly get hold of a law that serves as a weapon to our passions. Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
The clearest way to show what the rule of law means to us in everyday life is to recall what has happened when there is no rule of law. Dwight D. Eisenhower
Laws, like houses, lean on one another. Edmund Burke
There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion. Charles De Montesquieu
Whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can commit the least act of injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it. Henry David Thoreau
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