Laws Quotes

The law is not so much carved in stone as it is written in water, flowing in and out with the tide.

Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.

Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse.

There are not enough jails, not enough policemen, not even enough courts too enforce a law not supported by the people.

Law is experience developed by reason and applied continually to further experience.

The law that will work is merely the summing up in legislative form of the moral judgement that the community has already reached.

Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the general progress of the human mind.

The decisions of the courts on economic and social questions depend on their economic and social philosophy.

The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go to erase it.

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.

The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.

When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken.

The more laws and order are made prominent,
The more thieves and robbers there will be.

I have gained this by philosophy: that I do without being commanded what others do only from fear of the law.

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.

Law is order, and good law is good order.

Law stands mute in the midst of arms.

The people's good is the highest law.

The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.

Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made.

The strictest law often causes the most serious wrong.

The law must be stable, but it must not stand still.

It is found by experience that admirable laws and right precedents among the good have their origin in the misdeeds of others.

Justice requires that to lawfully constituted Authority there be given that respect and obedience which is its due; that the laws which are made shall be in wise conformity with the common good; and that, as a matter of conscience all men shall render obedience to these laws.

Law is order in liberty, and without order liberty is social chaos.

Law is the embodiment of the moral sentiment of the people.

Laws alone can not secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.

A law is something which must have a moral basis, so that there is an inner compelling force for every citizen to obey.

Where you find the laws most numerous, there you will find also the greatest injustice.

Law is mind without reason.

Good laws have their origins in bad morals.

Fragile as reason is and limited as law is as the institutionalised medium of reason, that's all we have between us and the tyranny of mere will and the cruelty of unbridled, undisciplined feelings.

What power has law where only money rules.

Necessity has no law.

It was the boast of Augustus that he found Rome of brick and left it of marble. But how much nobler will be the sovereign's boast when he shall have it to say that he found law... a sealed book and left it a living letter; found it the patrimony of the rich and left it the inheritance of the poor; found it the two-edged sword of craft and oppression and left it the staff of honesty and the shield of innocence.

Let us consider the reason of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason.

Ignorance of the law excuses no man: Not that all men know the law, but because 'tis an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to refute him.

Let me not be understood as saying that there are no bad laws, nor that grievances may not arise for the redress of which no legal provisions have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say that although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still, while they continue in force, for the sake of example they should be religiously observed.

It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.

Pity is the virtue of the law, and none but tyrants use it cruelly.

In the state of nature...all men are born equal, but they cannot continue in this equality. Society makes them lose it, and they recover it only by the protection of the law.

The welfare of the people is the ultimate law.
(Salus Populi Suprema Est Lex)

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

Laws do not persuade just because they threaten.

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

When you break the big laws, you do not get freedom; you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.

An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil.

When the president does it that means that it is not illegal.

A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.

A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.

There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.

In a state where corruption abounds, laws must be very numerous.