Laws or ordinances unobserved, or partially attended to, had better never have been made.
GEORGE WASHINGTON, letter to James Madison, Mar. 31, 1787
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
EDMUND BURKE, speech at Bristol previous to the election of 1780
Reason is the life of the law, nay the common law is nothing else but reason.
SIR EDWARD COKE, Institutes: Commentary upon Littleton
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
ANATOLE FRANCE, The Red Lily
There are many pleasant fictions of the law in constant operation, but there is not one so pleasant or practically humorous as that which supposes every man to be of equal value in its impartial eye, and the benefits of all laws to be equally attainable by all men, without the smallest reference to the furniture of their pockets.
CHARLES DICKENS, Nicholas Nickleby
Every new time will give its law.
MAXIM GORKY, The New Lawyer's Wit and Wisdom
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
JONATHAN SWIFT, A Critical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind
The law was made for one thing alone, for the exploitation of those who don't understand it.
BERTOLT BRECHT, The Threepenny Opera
When each citizen submits himself to the authority of law he does not thereby decrease his independence or freedom, but rather increases it. By recognizing that he is a part of a larger body which is banded together for a common purpose, he becomes more than an individual, he rises to a new dignity of citizenship. Instead of finding himself restricted and confined by rendering obedience to public law, he finds himself protected and defended and in the exercise of increased and increasing rights.
CALVIN COOLIDGE, speech, May 30, 1924
One with the law is a majority.
CALVIN COOLIDGE, New York Times, Jul. 28, 1920
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH, The Traveller
Law is an imperfect profession in which success can rarely be achieved without some sacrifice of principle. Thus all practicing lawyers -- and most others in the profession -- will necessarily be imperfect, especially in the eyes of young idealists. There is no perfect justice, just as there is no absolute in ethics. But there is perfect injustice, and we know it when we see it.
ALAN DERSHOWITZ, Letters to a Young Lawyer
I don't go by what the law say. The law's liable to say anything. I go by if it's right or not. It don't matter what the law say. I take and look at it for myself.
AUGUST WILSON, The Piano Lesson
Accursed be the city where the laws would stifle nature's!
LORD BYRON, The Two Foscari
In all governments, there must of necessity be both the law and the sword; laws without arms would give us not liberty, but licentiousness; and arms without laws, would produce not subjection, but slavery. The law, therefore, should be unto the sword what the handle is to the hatchet; it should direct the stroke and temper the force.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon
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, speech on Impeachment of Warren Hastings, May 28, 1794
- Who to himself is law, no law doth need,
- Offends no law, and is a king indeed.
GEORGE CHAPMAN, Bussy D' Ambois
Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals.
Lawyers are the only persons in whom ignorance of the law is not punished.
JEREMY BENTHAM, The Canadian Bar Journal, Jun. 1966
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
[The Utopians] have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters and to wrest the laws, and, therefore, they think it is much better that every man should plead his own cause, and trust it to the judge, as in other places the client trusts it to a counsellor; by this means they both cut off many delays and find out truth more certainly; for after the parties have laid open the merits of the cause, without those artifices which lawyers are apt to suggest, the judge examines the whole matter, and supports the simplicity of such well-meaning persons, whom otherwise crafty men would be sure to run down; and thus they avoid those evils which appear very remarkably among all those nations that labour under a vast load of laws.
The Law ... is perfection of reason.
SIR EDWARD COKE, Institutes: Commentary upon Littleton
Law is a bottomless pit.
JOHN ARBUTHNOT, The History of John Bull
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