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
Laws are a nation's egotism.
The law is a battery, which protects all that is behind it, but sweeps with destruction all that is outside.
HENRY WARD BEECHER, Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
I reverence the law, but not where it is a pretext for wrong, which it should be the very object of law to hinder.... I hold it blasphemy to say that a man ought not to fight against authority: there is no great religion and no great freedom that has not done it.
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.
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
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