Laws had a bad habit of being ignored or abrogated when societal push came to totalitarian shove.
He who dethrones the idea of law, bids chaos welcome in its stead.
It usually takes a hundred years to make a law, and then, after it has done its work, it usually takes a hundred years to get rid of it.
HENRY WARD BEECHER, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The final test of civilization of a people is the respect they have for law.
Law is the rudder of the ship of state.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY, Keystones of Thought
The code of poor laws has at length grown up into a tree, which, like the fabulous Upas, overshadows and poisons the land; unwholesome expedients were the bud, dilemmas and depravities have been the blossom, and danger and despair are the bitter fruit.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon
The law is like Swiss cheese. The holes are the truth, and lawyers are like roaches crawling through the cheese. You can use the holes to get from one part of the cheese to another, but you can't eat the holes, you can only eat the cheese.
DON NIGRO, Tainted Justice
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
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
Laws change as the seasons.
A law is valuable, not because it is a law, but because there is right in it.
HENRY WARD BEECHER, Life Thoughts
There are times, too, when the law doesn't give a damn who gets caught beneath its wheels.
SUSANNE ALLEYN, Game of Patience
There must be law, steadily invoked and respected by all nations, for without law, the world promises only such meager justice as the pity of the strong upon the weak.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, Second Inaugural Address, Jan. 21, 1957
- For he that is delighted by concord,
- And who abideth in the Law,
- Falleth not from Security.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA, Iti-Vuttaka
The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Nature, — were Man as unerring in his judgments as Nature.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, Table-Talk
People are more afraid of the laws of Man than of God, because their punishment seems to be nearest.
WILLIAM PENN, Some Fruits of Solitude
Courts are places where the ending is written first and all that precedes is simply vaudeville.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI, Notes of a Dirty Old Man
Laws are confusing documents. They get in the way of justice.
PAOLO BACIGALUPI, The Windup Girl
Law always chooses sides on the basis of enforcement power. Morality and legal niceties have little to do with it when the real question is: Who has the clout?
FRANK HERBERT, Heretics of Dune
Laws and institutions are constantly tending to gravitate. Like clocks, they must be occasionally cleansed, and wound up, and set to true time.
HENRY WARD BEECHER, Life Thoughts
Laws are dangerous to everyone, innocent and guilty alike, because they have no human understanding in and of themselves. They must be interpreted.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVEN J. ANDERSON, Dune: House Corrino
Give me the judgment of balanced minds in preference to laws every time. Codes and manuals create patterned behavior. All patterned behavior tends to go unquestioned, gathering destructive momentum.
FRANK HERBERT, Chapterhouse: Dune
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