Law Quotes

.Unless by the lawful judgment of their peers [.Lat., Nisi per legale judicum parum suorum] ,Unattributed Author Magna Charta--Privilege of Barons of Parliament Law is merely the expression of the will of the strongest for the time being, and .therefore laws have no fixity, but shift from generation to generation Henry Brooks Adams .The laws of a state change with the changing times Aeschylus .Where there are laws, he who has not broken them need not tremble ,It., Ove son leggi] [.Tremar non dee chi leggi non infranse (Vittorio Alfieri, Virginia (II, 1 .Law is king of all Henry Alford, School of the Heart (lesson 6) .Laws are the silent assessors of God William R. Alger Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will like them only entangle and hold the .poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them Anacharsis, to Solon when writing his laws Law; an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the .community Saint Thomas Aquinas .Law is a bottomless pit ,John Arbuthnot (title of a pamphlet (about 1700 .Ancient laws remain in force long after the people have the power to change them Aristotle At his best man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the .worst Aristotle .The law is reason free from passion Aristotle .Whereas the law is passionless, passion must ever sway the heart of man Aristotle .Decided cases are the anchors of the law, as laws are of the state

Francis Bacon One of the Seven was wont to say: "That laws were like cobwebs; where the small ".flies were caught, and the great brake through (Francis Bacon, Apothegms (no. 181 .All this is but a web of the wit; it can work nothing Francis Bacon, Essays on Empire .A mouse-trap; easy to enter, but not easy to get out of Mrs. Clara Lucas Balfour .Laws are silent in the midst of arms John Bate .A law is valuable not because it is law, but because there is right in it Henry Ward Beecher .Laws are not masters but servants, and he rules them who obeys them Henry Ward Beecher Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, .according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not (Bible, Daniel (ch. VI, v. 8 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run ,with patience the race that is set before us Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the same, and is set down at the right hand of .the throne of God (Bible, Hebrews (ch. XII, v. 1-2 ;But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of .fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers (Bible, I Timothy (ch. I, v. 8-9 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because .there is no light in them (Bible, Isaiah (ch. VIII, v. 20 They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar .the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's (Bible, Matthew (ch. XXII, v. 21 .He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it (Bible, Proverbs (ch. XI, v. 15 -

Liberty, whether natural, civil, or political, is the lawful power in the individual to .exercise his corresponding rights. It is greatly favored in law Henry Campbell Black It is a very easy thing to devise good laws; the difficulty is to make them effective. The great mistake is that of looking upon men as virtuous, or thinking that they can be made so by laws; and consequently the greatest art of a politician is to render vices .serviceable to the cause of virtue 1st Viscount Bolingbroke, Henry St. John Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto .himself; it invites anarchy ,Louis D. Brandeis part of his dissent in the case "Olmstead v. United States", 277 U.S. 438, 485 ((1928 The law is a gun, which if it misses a pigeon always kills a crow; if it does not strike the guilty, it hits some one else. As every crime creates a law, so in turn every law .creates a crime Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton !Alas, the incertitude of the law Edmund Burke All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the .substance of original justice Edmund Burke .Law and arbitrary power are at eternal enmity Edmund Burke 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 There was an ancient Roman lawyer, of great fame in the history of Roman jurisprudence, whom they called Cui Bono, from his having first introduced into judicial proceedings the argument, "What end or object could the party have had in ".the act with which he is accused ,Edmund Burke Impeachment of Warren Hastings .I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against an whole people ,Edmund Burke Speech on the Conciliation of America A good parson once said that where mystery begins religion ends. Cannot I say, as

?truly at least, of human laws, that where mystery begins, justice ends ,Edmund Burke Vindication of Natural Society The law of England is the greatest grievance of the nation, very expensive and .dilatory ,Bishop Gilbert Burnet History of His Own Times .That which is a law today is none tomorrow Robert Burton Our wrangling lawyers . . . are so litigious and busy here on earth, that I think they .will plead their clients' causes hereafter, some of them in hell ,Robert Burton Anatomy of Melancholy--Democritus to the Reader Laws do not put the least restraint ;Upon our freedom but maintain 't ,Or, if it does, 'tis for our good ;To give us freer latitude ,For wholesome laws preserve us free .By stinting of our liberty (Samuel Butler (1 ,Your pettifoggers damn their souls .To share with knaves in cheating fools Samuel Butler (1), Hudibras (pt. II, canto I, l. 515) ,Is not the winding up witnesses ?And nicking, more than half the bus'ness For witnesses, like watches, go ;Just as they're set, too fast or slow ,And where in Conscience they're strait-lac'd .Tis ten to one that side is cast' Samuel Butler (1), Hudibras (pt. II, canto II, l. 359) .The law of heaven and earth is life for life ,(Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron (The Curse of Minerva (st. 15 .Arms and laws do not flourish together ,(Julius Caesar (Gaius Julius Caesar "in Plutarch's "Parallel Lives", "Julius Caesar .Hard cases, it is said, make bad law Lord John Campbell, 1st Baron Campbell -

.Law never is, but is always about to be Benjamin Cardozo No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular .opinion ,Carrie Chapman Catt in a speech at Senate hearing on Woman's suffrage ,Who to himself is law, no law doth need .Offends no law, and is a king indeed George Chapman, Bussy d'Ambois (act II, sc. 1) The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake, the winds may blow through it, the storm may enter, the .rain may enter; but the king of England cannot enter 1st Earl of Chatham, William Pitt .Where law ends, there tyranny begins 1st Earl of Chatham, William Pitt .Law is not law, if it violates the principles of eternal justice Mrs. Lydia Maria Child .Possession is eleven points in the law Colley Cibber .The good of the people is the chief law (Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero) (often called "Tully" for short .The law of nations [.Lat., Jus gentium] ,(Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero) (often called "Tully" for short (De Officiis (III, 17 For as the law is set over the magistrate, even so are the magistrates set over the people. And therefore, it may be truly said, "that the magistrate is a speaking law, and ".the law is a silent magistrate ,(Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero) (often called "Tully" for short (On the Laws (bk. III, I .For the laws are dumb in the midst of arms [.Lat., Silent enim leges inter arma] ,(Cicero (Marcus Tullius Cicero) (often called "Tully" for short (Pro Milone (IV After an existence of nearly twenty years of almost innocuous desuetude these laws .are brought forth Steven Grover Cleveland, Message -

.Common law is common right ,Lord Edward Coke as quoted by William Penn at his trial .Magna Charta is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign Lord Edward Coke, Debate in the Commons Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is nothing else but .reason. . . . The law which is perfection of reason Lord Edward Coke, First Institute .The gladsome light of jurisprudence Lord Edward Coke, First Institute Law and equity are two things which God hath joined, but which man hath put .asunder Charles Caleb Colton I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of .the law than they do upon its enforcement Calvin Coolidge .Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law (Aleister Crowley, Book of the Law (l. 40 .Men would be great criminals did they need as many laws as they break Lord Charles John Darling Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a .delusion, a mockery, and a snare ,Thomas Denman, 2nd Baron Denman ,O'Connell vs. the Queen II Clark and Finnelly Reports 351 .A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed Rene Descartes Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all .the public departments in the art of perceiving--HOW NOT TO DO IT Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit (bk. I, ch. X) ".If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, "the law is an ass, a idiot" (Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist (ch. LI I know'd what 'ud come o' this here mode o' doin' bisiness. Oh, Sammy, Sammy, vy !worn't there a alleybi ,Charles Dickens The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club ch. XXXIV (vol. II, ch. VI)) BUY VARYING HARE USED BOOK)

If it's near dinner-time, the foreman takes out his watch when the jury has retired, and says: "Dear me, gentlemen, ten minutes to five, I declare! I dine at five, gentlemen." "So do I," says everybody else, except two men who ought to have dined at three and seem more than half disposed to stand out in consequence. The foreman smiles, and puts up his watch:--"Well, gentlemen, what do we say, plaintiff or defendant, gentlemen? I rather think, so far as I am concerned, gentlemen--I say I rather think-don't let that influence you--I rather think the plaintiff's the man." Upon this two or three other men are sure that think so too--as of course they do; and then they get on .very unanimously and comfortably ,Charles Dickens The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club ch. XXXIV (vol. II, ch. VI)) BUY VARYING HARE USED BOOK) To seek the redress of grievances by going to law, is like sheep running for shelter to .a bramble bush Lewis W. Dilwyn .When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield .Man became free when he recognized that he was subject to law William James (Will) Durant Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his .views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population Albert Einstein .Christianity is part of the law of England John Scott Eldon, 1st Earl of Eldon .Good men must not obey the laws too well Ralph Waldo Emerson .No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature Ralph Waldo Emerson .Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal Friedrich Engels To go to law, is for two persons to kindle a fire at their own cost, to warm others, and singe themselves to cinders; and because they cannot agree, to what is truth and equity, they will both agree to unplume themselves, that others may be decorated with .their feathers (Owen Felltham (Feltham When the judges shall be obliged to go armed, it will be time for the courts to be .closed ,Stephen Johnson Field when advised to arm himself, California

The law sends us to Christ to be justified, and Christ sends us to the law to be .regulated (Rev. John Flavel (2 Future lawyers should be more aware that law is not a system of abstract logic, but the web of arrangements, rooted in history but also in hopes, for promoting to a maximum .the full use of a nation's resources and talents ,Justice Felix Frankfurter in an address to the College of the City of New York, September, 30, 1942 Where there is Hunger, Law is not regarded; and where Law is not regarded, there .will be Hunger Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack Our human laws are but the copies, more or less imperfect, of the eternal laws, so far .as we can read them ,James Anthony Froude Short Studies on Great Subjects--Calvinism Just laws are no restraint upon the freedom of the good, for the good man desires .nothing which a just law will interfere with ,James Anthony Froude Short Studies on Great Subjects--Reciprocal Duties of State and Subject Coercion is the basis of every law in the universe,--human or divine. A law is not law .without coercion behind it James Abram Garfield Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal .law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind ,Edward Gibbon The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (ch. XIV, vol. I) ,All rights and laws are still transmitted .Like an eternal sickness to the race Ger., Es erben sich Gesetz and Rechte] [.Wie eine ew'ge Krankheit fort Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust (I, 4, 449) .After all, that is what laws are for, to be made and unmade Emma Goldman .The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue Oliver Goldsmith .Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law (Oliver Goldsmith, The Traveller (l. 386 -

.A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on Samuel Goldwyn I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their .stringent execution Ulysses Simpson Grant, Inaugural Address My Lords, I have more than once had occasion to say that in construing a statute I .believe the worst person to construe it is the person who is responsible for its draft ,Lord Halsbury, Hardinge Stanley Giffard (Appeal Cases (p. 477 1902 It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that .they cannot be understood Alexander Hamilton .The aim of law is the maximum gratification of the nervous system of man Learned Hand .The people should fight for the law as for their city wall Heraclitus of Ephesus .Law that shocks equity is reason's murderer Aaron Hill What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow; that is the whole Law: the rest is .commentary Hillel .It is only rogues who feel the restraints of law (Josiah Gilbert Holland (used pseudonym Timothy Titcomb Laws are the very bulwarks of liberty. They define every man's rights, and stand .between and defend the individual liberties of all men (Josiah Gilbert Holland (used pseudonym Timothy Titcomb The moment that law is destroyed, liberty is lost, and men, left free to enter upon the domains of each other, destroy each other's rights, and invade the field of each other's .liberty (Josiah Gilbert Holland (used pseudonym Timothy Titcomb Of law there can be no less acknowledged than that her seat is the bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world; all things do her homage, the very least as feeling her care; and the greatest as not exempted from leer power; both angels and men, and creatures of what condition soever, though each in different sort and manner, yet all .with uniform consent admiring her as the mother of their peace and joy Richard Hooker -

?Of what use are laws, inoperative through public immortality Lat., Quid leges sine moribus] [?Vanae proficiunt Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), Carmina (III, 24, 35) When we deal with questions relating to principles of law and their applications, we .do not suddenly rise into a stratosphere of icy certainty Charles Evans Hughes The law is a pretty bird, and has charming wings. It would be quite a bird of paradise .if it did not carry such a terrible bill Douglas William Jerrold You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause .if improperly administered Lyndon Baines Johnson A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things .occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose ("Samuel Johnson (a/k/a Dr. Johnson) ("The Great Cham of Literature The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the .benefit of the public ,("Samuel Johnson (a/k/a Dr. Johnson) ("The Great Cham of Literature (Johnsoniana (Piozzi's Anecdotes, 58 .The good need fear no law; it is his safety, and the bad man's awe Ben Jonson .The verdict acquits the raven, but condemns the dove [.Lat., Dat veniam corvis, vexat censura columbas] Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juvenal), Satires (II, 63) Avoid law suits beyond all things; they influence your conscience, impair your health, .and dissipate your property Jean de la Bruyere .The laws sometimes sleep, but never die Legal Maxim .We must never assume that which is incapable of proof ,George Henry Lewes (The Physiology of Common Life (ch. XIII Before then any man might instantly use what another had invented; so that the inventor had no special advantage from his own invention. The patent system changed this; secured to the inventor, for a limited time, the exclusive use of his invention; and

thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production .of new and useful things ,Abraham Lincoln in his Second Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions, Jacksonville, Illionois, February 11, 1859 Let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his .father, and to tear that charter of his own and his children's liberty Abraham Lincoln .It is safer that a bad man should not be accused, than that he should be acquitted [.Lat., Hominem improbum non accusari tutius est quam absolvi] (Titus Livy, Annales (XXXIV, 4 .Laws are the sovereigns of sovereigns ("Louis XIV ("Le Grand .The charter will henceforth be a reality [.Fr., La charte sera desormais une verite] ("Louis Philippe ("Roi Citoyen" "The Citizan King ,And folks are beginning to think it looks odd .To choke a poor scamp for the glory of God James Russell Lowell, A Fable for Critics (l. 492) .All things obey fixed laws (Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus .The law discovers the disease. The gospel gives the remedy Martin Luther Because just as good morals, if they are to be maintained, have need of the laws, so .the laws, if they are to be observed, have need of good morals (Niccolo Machiavelli (Macchiavelli For as laws are necessary that good manners may be preserved, so there is need of .good manner that laws may be maintained It., Perche, cosi come i buoni costumi, per mantenersi, hanno bisogno delli leggi; ] [.cosi le leggi per ossevarsi, hanno bisogno de' buoni costumi ,(Niccolo Machiavelli (Macchiavelli (Dei Discorsi (I, 18 The law is a sort of hocus-pocus science, that smiles in yeer face while it picks yeer pocket: and the glorious uncertainty of it is of mair use to the professors than the .justice of it Charles Macklin, Love a la Mode (act II, sc. 1) In almost every case except the very plainest, it would be possible to decide the issue

.either way with reasonable legal justification Hugh Macmillan, Lord Macmillan Measures should be enacted which, without violating the rights of property, would reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigence .towards a state of comfort James Madison .All tings obey fixed laws [.Lat., Certis . . . legibus omnia parent] ,(Manilius (Manlius or Mallius) (Marcus or Caius (Astronomica (I, 479 .The law speaks too softly to be heard amidst the din of arms ,Gaius Marius in Plutarch's "Life of Caius Marius", when complaint made of granting freedom to Camerians The law is not so much carved in stone as it is written in water, flowing in and out .with the tide Jeff Melvoin .Who loves law, dies either mad or poor Thomas Middleton .As the case stands (Thomas Middleton, Old Law (act II, sc. 1 .Laws can discover sin, but not remove it John Milton .Litigious terms, fat contentions, and flowing fees John Milton, Prose Works (vol. I, Of Education) .The clatter of arms drowns the voice of the law [.Fr., Le bruit des armes l'empeschoit d'entendre la voix des lois] Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, Essays (III, I) There is no man so good, who, were he to submit all his thoughts and actions to the .laws would not deserve hanging tem times in his life ,Michel Eyquem de Montaigne Essays--Of Vanity All beings have their laws; the Deity has His laws, the material world has its laws, .superior intelligences have their laws, the beasts have their laws, and man his laws (Charles de Montesquieu (Charles-Louis de Secondat .Law should be like death, which spares no one

(Charles de Montesquieu (Charles-Louis de Secondat No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean .fingernails John Mortimer, A Voyage Round My Father (act I) The law seems like a sort of maze through which a client must be led to safety, a collection of reefs, rocks, and underwater hazards through which he or she must be .piloted John Mortimer, Clinging to the Wreckage (ch. 7) .The people's safety is the law of God James Otis .Petty laws breed great crimes (Ouida (pseudonym of Marie Louise de la Ramee Nor is there any law more just, than that he who has plotted death shall perish by his .own plot ,Lat., Neque enim lex est aequior ulla] [.Quam necis artifices arte perire sua Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso), Ars Amatoria (I, 655) .The gods have their own laws [.Lat., Sunt superis sua jura] Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso), Metamorphoses (IX, 499) .Where law ends, there tyranny begins ,William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham (Case of Wilkes--Speech (last line Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will .find a way around the laws {Plato (originally Aristocles .You little know what a ticklish thing it is to go to law [.Lat., Nescis tu quam meticulosa res sit ire ad judicem] ,(Plautus (Titus Maccius Plautus (Mostellaria (V, 1, 52 .The prince is not above the laws, but the laws above the prince [.Lat., Non est priceps super leges, sed leges supra principem] ,(Pliny the Younger (Caius Caecilius Secundus (Panegyr--Traj (65

.Curse on all laws but those which love has made (Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard (l. 74 ,All, look up with reverential awe .At crimes that 'scape, or triumph o'er the law Alexander Pope, Epilogue to Satire (dialogue I, l. 167) ,Mark what unvary'd laws preserve each state .Laws wise as Nature, and as fixed as Fate Alexander Pope, Essay on Man (ep. III, l. 189) ,Piecemeal they win this acre first then, that .Glean on, and gather up the whole estate Alexander Pope, Satires of Dr. Donne (satire II, l. 91) (Once (says an Author; where, I need not say ;Two Trav'lers found an Oyster in their way ,Both fierce, both hungry; the dispute grew strong .While Scale in hand Dame Justice pass'd along .Before her each with clamour pleads the Laws ,Explain'd the matter, and would win the cause ,Dame Justice weighing long the doubtful Right .Takes, open, swallows it, before their sight ,The cause of strife remov'd so rarely well .There take" (says Justice), "take ye each a shell" :We thrive at Westminster on Fools like you ".Twas a fat oyster--live in peace--Adieu' Alexander Pope, Verbatim from Boileau .Let us consider the reasons of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason ,Sir John Powell, Coggs vs. Bernard Lord Raymond's Reports 911 2 A country is considered the more civilized the more wisdom and efficiency of its laws .hinder a weak man from becoming too weak or a powerful too powerful Levi Levi Primo Use law and physic only for necessity; they that use them otherwise abuse themselves into weak bodies, and light purses; they are good remedies, bad businesses, and worse .recreations Francis Quarles The purpose of the law is not to prevent a future offense, but to punish the one .actually committed Ayn Rand ,That very law which moulds a tear

,And bids it trickle from its source ,That law preserves the earth a sphere .And guides the planets in their course (Samuel Rogers, On a Tear (st. 6 No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission .when we ask him to obey it Theodore Roosevelt If there be any one principle more widely than another confessed by every utterance, or more sternly than another imprinted on every atom of the visible creation, that .principle is not liberty, but law John Ruskin .The law often allows what honor forbids [.Fr., La loi permet souvent ce que defend l'honneur] (Bernard Joseph Saurin, Spartacus (III, 3 Equity judgeth with lenity, laws with extremity. In all moral cases, the reason of the .law is the law Sir Walter Scott Ignorance of the law excuses no man; not that all men know the law, but because it is .an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to confute him John Selden .If you judge, investigate; if you reign, command [.Lat., Si judicas, cognosce; si regnas, jube] Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca), Medea (CXCIV) He who decides a case without hearing the other side, though he decide justly, cannot .be considered just ,Lat., Qui statuit aliquid, parte inaudita altera] [.Aequum licet statuerit, haud aequus fuerit Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca), Medea (CXCIX) It is the act of the indolent not to know what he may lawfully do. It is praiseworthy to .do what is becoming, and not merely what is lawful .Lat., Inertis est nescire, quid liceat sibi] [.Id facere, laus est, quod decet; non, quod licet Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca), Octavia (CCCCLIII) .There is a higher law than the Constitution William Henry Seward, in a speech .Old father antic the law William Shakespeare -

You wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a forset-seller, and then rejourn the controversy of threepence to a second day of .audience William Shakespeare, Coriolanus (Menenius at II, i) ;He hath resisted law And therefore law shall scorn him further trial ,Than the severity of the public power .Which he so sets at nought William Shakespeare, Coriolanus (Sicinius at III, i) In the corrupted currents of this world ,Offense's gilded hand may shove by justice And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself .Buys out the law. But 'tis not so above There is no shuffling; there the action lies ,In his true nature, and we ourselves compelled ,Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults .To give in evidence ,William Shakespeare Hamlet Prince of Denmark (Claudius, King of Denmark at III, iii) ?Other Clown:) But is this law) .Clown:) Ay marry, is't--crowner's quest law) ,William Shakespeare Hamlet Prince of Denmark (Other Clown & Clown at V, i) Yea, and so used it that, were it not here apparent that thou art heir apparent--But I prithee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art King? and of resolution thus fubbed as it is with the rusty curb of old father antic the law? .Do not thou, when thou art king, hand a thief ,William Shakespeare King Henry the Fourth, Part I (Falstaff at I, ii) .The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers ,William Shakespeare King Henry the Fourth, Part II (Butcher at IV, ii) ,Between two hawks, which flies the higher pitch ,Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth ,Between two blades, which bears the better temper ,Between two horses, which doth bear him best ,Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye

;I have perhaps some shallow spirit of judgment ,But in these nice sharp quillets of the law .Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw ,William Shakespeare King Henry the Sixth, Part I (Warwick at II, iv) Faith, I have been a truant in the law ,And never yet could frame my will to it .And therefore frame the law unto my will ,William Shakespeare King Henry the Sixth, Part I (Suffolk at II, iv) .Then 'tis like the breath of an unfee'd lawyer--you gave me nothing for't William Shakespeare, King Lear (Fool at I, iv) ,Therefore to's seemeth it a needful course ,Before we enter his forbidden gates ;To know his pleasure; and in that behalf Bold of your worthiness, we single you .As our best-moving fair solicitor William Shakespeare, Love's Labor's Lost (Princess of France at II, i) ,We have strict statutes and most biting laws ,The needful bits and curbs to headstrong jades ;Which for this fourteen years we have let slip ,Even like an o'ergrown lion in a cave .That goes not out to prey William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (Vincentio, the Duke at I, iii) ,We must not make a scarecrow of the law ,Setting it up to fear the birds of prey And let it keep one shape, till custom make it .Their perch and not their terror William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (Angelo at II, i) Whoe'er he be that in this foul proceeding ,Hath thus beguiled your daughter of herself And you of her, the bloody book of law You shall yourself read in the bitter letter After your own sense; yea, though our proper son .Stood in your action ,William Shakespeare Othello the Moor of Venice (Duke of Venice at I, iii)

,When law can do no right .Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong ,William Shakespeare The Life and Death of King John (Constance at III, i) ,O my lord Press not a falling man too far! 'Tis virtue ,His faults lie open to the laws; let them .Not you, correct him ,William Shakespeare The Life of King Henry the Eighth (Chamberlain at III, ii) .We are for law. He dies ,William Shakespeare The Life of Timon of Athens (First Senator at III, v) ,To offend and judge are distinct offices .And of opposed natures ,William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice Portia at II, ix) BUY VARYING HARE USED BOOK) In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt ,But being seasoned with a gracious voice ?Obscures the show of evil ,William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice Bassanio at III, ii) BUY VARYING HARE USED BOOK) It must not be. There is no power in Venice .Can alter a decree established ,Twill be recorded for a precedent' And carry an error by the same example .Will rush into the state. It cannot be ,William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice Portia at III, ii) BUY VARYING HARE USED BOOK) ,Sir, I shall not be slack, in sign whereof Please ye we may convive this afternoon ,And quaff carouses to our mistress's health ,And do as adversaries do in law .Strive mightily but eat and drink as friends ,William Shakespeare The Taming of the Shrew (Tranio at I, ii)

,I am a subject ,And I challenge law. Attorneys are denied me And therefore personally I lay my claim .To my inheritance of free descent ,William Shakespeare The Tragedy of King Richard the Second (Bolingbroke at II, iii) Are you drawn forth among a world of men ?To slay the innocent? What is my offense ?Where is the evidence that doth accuse me What lawful quest have given their verdict up Unto the frowning judge? or who pronounced The bitter sentence of poor Clarence's death ?Before I be convict by course of law :To threaten me with death is most unlawful I charge you, as you hope [to have redemption [,By Christ's dear blood shed for our grievous sins .That you depart, and lay no hands on me .The deed you undertake is damnable ,William Shakespeare The Tragedy of King Richard the Third (Clarence at I, iv) .And they have been grand-jurymen since before Noah was a sailor ,William Shakespeare Twelfth Night, or, What You Will (Toby at III, ii) .Still you keep o' th' windy side of the law ,William Shakespeare Twelfth Night, or, What You Will (Fabian at III, iv) Laws are generally found to be nets of such a texture. as the little creep through, the .great break through, and the middle-sized entangled in William Shenstone, On Politics Laws are not made like lime-twigs or nets, to catch everything that toucheth them; but .rather like sea-marks, to guide from shipwreck the ignorant passenger (Sir Philip Sidney (Sydney ,When to raise the wind some lawyer tries ;Mysterious skins of parchment meet our eyes --On speeds the smiling suit .... Till stript--nonsuited--he is doomed to toss ,In legal shipwreck, and redeemless loss Lucky, if like Ulysses, he can keep

.His head above the waters of the deep ,Horace Smith and James Smith ,Rejected Addresses--Architectural Atoms (.translation by Dr. B.T) Laws are like spiders' webs which, if anything small falls into them they ensnare it, .but large things break through and escape Solon To make an empire durable, the magistrates must obey the laws and the people the .magistrates Solon Men keep their engagements when it is an advantage to both parties not to break .them ,Solon, Answer to Anacharsis "in Plutarch's "Life of Solon .Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law Sophocles .What a cage is to the wild beast, law is to the selfish man Herbert Spencer To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all laws into .contempt Elizabeth Cady Stanton .Law is a bottomless pit; it is a cormorant,--a harpy that devours everything Jonathan Swift Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break .through ,Jonathan Swift Essay on the Faculties of the Mind .He hurts the good who spares the bad [.Lat., Bonis nocet quisquis pepercerit malis] Syrus (Publilius Syrus), Maxims .The judge is condemned when the guilty is acquitted [.Lat., Judex damnatur cum nocens absolvitur] Syrus (Publilius Syrus), Maxims .When the state is most corrupt, then the laws are most multiplied (Tacitus (Caius Cornelius Tacitus .The more corrupt the state, the more laws [.Lat., Corruptissima republica, plurimae leges] Tacitus (Caius Cornelius Tacitus), Annales -

(III, 27) .In all things there is a kind of law of cycles [.Lat., Rebus cunctis inest quidam velut orbis] Tacitus (Caius Cornelius Tacitus), Annales (III, 55) Our magistrates discharge their duties best at the beginning; and fall off toward the .end [.Lat., Initia magistratuum nostrorum meliora, ferme finis inclinat] Tacitus (Caius Cornelius Tacitus), Annales (XV, 31) .A legal decision depends not on the teacher's age, but on the force of his argument The Talmud .A man must not go to law because the musician keeps false time with his foot Jeremy Taylor vol. VIII, p. 145 .What the law insists upon, let it have of your own free will [.Lat., Quod vos jus cogit, id voluntate impetret] Terence (Publius Terentius Afer), Adelphi (III, 4, 44) .The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice [.Lat., Jus summum saepe summa est malitia ] ,(Terence (Publius Terentius Afer (Heauton timoroumenos (IV, V, 48 .The highest law gives a thing to him who can use it Henry David Thoreau .The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free Henry David Thoreau ,No man e'er felt the halter draw .With good opinion of the law John Trumbull (1), McFingal (canto III, l. 489) .We enact many laws that manufacture criminals, and then a few that punish them Benjamin R. Tucker .For certain people, after fifty, litigation takes the place of sex Gore Vidal .In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics "Earl Warren, in the "New York Times .Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals

George Washington .The Law: It has honored us, may we honor it ,Daniel Webster a toast at the Charleston Bar Dinner .The glorious uncertainty of law ,Thomas Wilbraham a toast at a dinner of judges and counsel at Serjeants' Inn Hall And he that gives us in these days .New Lords may give us new laws ,(George Wither (Whyther or Withers Contented Man's Morrice And through the heat of conflict keeps the law .In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw ,William Wordsworth (Character of a Happy Warrior (l. 53 He it was that first gave to the law the air of a science. He found it a skeleton, and clothed it with life, colour, and complexion; he embraced the cold statue, and by his .touch it grew into youth, health, and beauty ,Barry Yelverton, 1st Viscount Avonmore On Blackstone Future lawyers should be more aware that law is not a system of abstract logic, but the web of arrangements, rooted in history but also in hopes, for promoting to a maximum .the full use of a nation's resources and talents ,Justice Felix Frankfurter in an address to the College of the City of New York, September, 30, 1942

We cannot build foundations of a state without rule of .law Mahmoud Abbas Unless by the lawful judgment of their peers. [Lat., Nisi per legale judicum parum suorum.] Author: Unattributed Author Source: Magna Charta--Privilege of Barons of Parliament Where there are laws, he who has not broken them need not tremble. [It., Ove son leggi, Tremar non dee chi leggi non infranse.] Author: Vittorio Alfieri Source: Virginia (II, 1) Law is king of all. Author: Henry Alford Source: School of the Heart (lesson 6) Written laws are like spiders' webs, and will like them only entangle and hold the poor and weak, while the rich and powerful will easily break through them. Author: Anacharsis Source: to Solon when writing his laws Law is a bottomless pit.

Author: John Arbuthnot Source: title of a pamphlet (about 1700) One of the Seven was wont to say: "That laws were like cobwebs; where the small flies were caught, and the great brake through." Author: Francis Bacon Source: Apothegms (no. 181) All this is but a web of the wit; it can work nothing. Author: Francis Bacon Source: Essays on Empire Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not. Author: Bible Source: Daniel (ch. VI, v. 8) Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the same, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Author: Bible Source: Hebrews (ch. XII, v. 1-2) But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully; Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers. Author: Bible Source: I Timothy (ch. I, v. 8-9) To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. Author: Bible Source: Isaiah (ch. VIII, v. 20) They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's. Author: Bible Source: Matthew (ch. XXII, v. 21) He that is surety for a stranger shall smart for it. Author: Bible Source: Proverbs (ch. XI, v. 15) Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. Author: Louis D. Brandeis Source: part of his dissent in the case "Olmstead v. United States", 277 U.S. 438, 485 (1928) There was an ancient Roman lawyer, of great fame in the history of Roman jurisprudence, whom they called Cui Bono, from his having first introduced into judicial proceedings the argument, "What end or object could the party have had in the act with which he is accused." Author: Edmund Burke Source: Impeachment of Warren Hastings I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against an whole people. Author: Edmund Burke Source: Speech on the Conciliation of America A good parson once said that where mystery begins religion ends. Cannot I say, as truly at least, of human laws, that where mystery begins, justice ends? Author: Edmund Burke Source: Vindication of Natural Society The law of England is the greatest grievance of the nation, very expensive and dilatory.

Author: Bishop Gilbert Burnet Source: History of His Own Times Our wrangling lawyers . . . are so litigious and busy here on earth, that I think they will plead their clients' causes hereafter, some of them in hell. Author: Robert Burton Source: Anatomy of Melancholy--Democritus to the Reader Your pettifoggers damn their souls, To share with knaves in cheating fools. Author: Samuel Butler (1) Source: Hudibras (pt. II, canto I, l. 515) Is not the winding up witnesses, And nicking, more than half the bus'ness? For witnesses, like watches, go Just as they're set, too fast or slow; And where in Conscience they're strait-lac'd, 'Tis ten to one that side is cast. Author: Samuel Butler (1) Source: Hudibras (pt. II, canto II, l. 359) The law of heaven and earth is life for life. Author:

Lord Byron (George Gordon Noel Byron) Source: The Curse of Minerva (st. 15)

Arms and laws do not flourish together. Author: Julius Caesar (Caius Julius Caesar) Source: in Plutarch's "Parallel Lives", "Julius Caesar" No written law has been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion. Author: Carrie Chapman Catt Source: in a speech at Senate hearing on Woman's suffrage Who to himself is law, no law doth need, Offends no law, and is a king indeed. Author: George Chapman Source: Bussy d'Ambois (act II, sc. 1) I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means. Author: Clarence Darrow Source: None This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice. Author: Oliver Wendell Source: None A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. Author: Robert Frost Source: None Anarchy - it's not the law, it's just a good idea. Author: Anonymous Source: None I feel like a fugitive from the law of averages. Author:

William H Mauldin Source: None

The problem with any unwritten law is that you don't know where to go to erase it. Author: Glaser and Source: None

Way

If it weren't for my lawyer, I'd still be in prison. It went a lot faster with two people digging. Author: Mister Boffo Source: None A group of white South Africans recently killed a black lawyer because he was black. That was wrong. They should have killed him because he was a lawyer. Author:

A Whitney Brown

Source: None

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. Author: Anatole France Source: None The most overlooked advantage to owning a computer is that if they foul up there's no law against whacking them around a little. Author: Porterfield Source: None Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage, and those who manage what they do not understand. Author: Putt's Law Source: None The reason there is so little crime in Germany is that it's against the law. Author: Alex Levin Source: None For the skeptic there remains only one consolation: if there should be such a thing as superhuman law it is administered with subhuman inefficiency. Author: Eric Ambler Source: None The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced. Author: Frank Zappa Source: None I have forgotten more law than you ever knew, but allow me to say, I have not forgotten much. Author: Anon. Source: None America is a country where, thanks to Congress, there are 40 million laws to enforce 10 commandments. Author: Anon. Source: None The law is a strange thing. It makes a man swear to tell the truth, and every time he shows signs of doing so, some lawyer objects. Author: Anon. Source: None If you laid all our laws end to end, there would be no end. Author:

Arthur 'bugs' Baer Source: None

Our system is not one of justice, but of law. Author: Edna Buchanan Source: None Men would be great criminals did they need as many laws as they break. Author:

Charles John Darling Source: None

The law is above the law, you know. Author:

Dorothy Salisbury Davis Source: None

It takes a long time to learn that a courtroom is the last place in the world for learning the truth. Author: Alice Koller Source: None Laws are only felt when the individual comes in conflict with them. Author:

Suzanne La Follette Source: None

Petty laws breed great crimes. Author:

Ouida

Source: None Law school taught me one thing: how to take two situations that are exactly the same and show how they are different. Author: Hart Pomerantz Source: None The law itself follows gold. Author: Propertius Source: None For many persons, law appears to be black magic--an obscure domain that can be fathomed only by the professional initiated into the mysteries. Author: Susan C. Ross Source: None The mills of God work like lightning compared with the law. Author: Mary Stewart Source: None There is plenty of law at the end of a nightstick.

Grover A. Whalen

Author:

Source: None The law must be stable and yet it must not stand still. Author: Roscoe Pound Source: None The United States was founded by the violent overthrow of a violently founded throne. Author: O Anna Niemus Source: None A law is valuable not because it is law, but because there is right in it. Author:

Henry Ward Beecher Source: None

Litigant: a person about to give up his skin for the hope of retaining his bone. Author: Ambrose Bierce Source: None The law is not a "light" for you or any man to see by; the law is not an instrument of any kind. The law is a causeway upon which so long as he keeps to it a citizen may walk safely. Author: Robert Bolt Source: None The case has been going on for so long that I've forgotten whether I'm really innocent or guilty. Author:

Ashleigh Brilliant Source: None

An appeal is when ye ask wan court to show its contempt for another court. Author:

Finley Peter Dunne Source: None

The law's made to take care o' raskills. Author: George Eliot Source: None How noble the law, in its majestic equality, that both the rich and poor are equally prohibited from peeing in the streets, sleeping under bridges, and stealing bread! Author: Anatole France Source: None A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. Author: Robert Frost Source: None Law cannot persuade where it cannot punish. Author:

Thomas Fuller

Source: None The aim of law is the maximum gratification of the nervous system of man. Author: Learned Hand Source: None Those who are too lazy and comfortable to think for themselves and be their own judges obey the laws. Others sense their own laws within them. Author: Herman Hesse Source: None Laws that do not embody public opinion can never be enforced. Author: Elbert Hubbard Source: None We can not expect to breed respect for law and order among people who do not share the fruits of our freedom. Author:

Hubert H. Humphrey Source: None

It is the trade of lawyers to question everything, yield nothing, and to talk by the hour. Author:

Thomas Jefferson Source: None

Every skilled person is to be believed with reference to his own art. Author: Legal Maxim Source: None It is not possible to make a bad law. If is is bad, it is not a law. Author: Carry Nation Source: None Law is no explanation of anything; law is simply a generalization, a category of facts. Law is neither a cause, nor a reason, nor a power, nor a coercive force. It is nothing but a general formula, a statistical table. Author:

Florence Nightingale Source: None

Wretches hang that jurymen may dine. Author: Alexander Source: None

Pope

Our very freedom is secure because we're a nation governed by laws, not by men. We cannot as citizens pick and choose the laws we will or will not obey. Author: Ronals Reagan Source: None It is criminal to steal a purse, daring to steal a fortune, a mark of greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes as the guilt increases. Author:

Friedrich Von Schiller Source: None

Ignorance of the law excuses no man. Author: John Selden Source: None It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive. Author: Earl Warren Source: None Justice Stevens is one of those who are most sensitive to the least powerful in our society. Author:

Senator Paul Simon Source: None

Any law that takes hold of a man's daily life cannot prevail in a community, unless the vast majority of the community are actively in favor of it. The laws that are the most operative are the laws which protect life. Author:

Henry Ward Beecher Source: None

Those learned in the law, when they do give advice without the usual fee, and in the confidence of friendship, generally say, "Pay, pay anything rather than go to law.". Author: Isabella Beeton Source: None No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Author:

Ralph Waldo Emerson Source: None

If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny. Legal process is an essential part of the democratic process. Author: Felix Frankfurter Source: None A successful lawsuit is the one worn by the policeman. Author: Robert Frost Source: None Where law ends, tyranny begins. Author: William Source: None

Pitt

You can't legislate intelligence and common sense into people. Author: Will Rogers Source: None No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it. Author:

Theodore Roosevelt Source: None

To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all laws into contempt. Author:

Elizabeth Cady Stanton Source: None

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies but which let wasps and hornets break through. Author: Jonathan Swift Source: None The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state. Author: Tacitus Source: None I can't do literary work for the rest of this year because I'm meditating another lawsuit and looking around for a defendant. Author: Mark Twain Source: None I was never ruined but twice: once when I lost a lawsuit and once when I won one. Author: Voltaire Source: None When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff. Author: Cicero Source: None Law and equity are two things which God hath joined, but which man hath put asunder. Author:

Charles Caleb Colton Source: None

The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly. Author: Abraham Lincoln Source: None Because just as good morals, if they are to be maintained, have need of the laws, so the laws, if they are to be observed, have need of good morals. Author:

Niccolo Machiavelli Source: None

If you like laws and sausages, you should never watch either one being made. Author:

Otto Von Bismarck Source: None

Edward Abbey, quotes about Law: A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. more Edward Abbey quotes

John Adams, quotes about Law: no good government but what is republican... the very definition of a republic is 'an empire of laws, and not of men.' more John Adams quotes

John Adams, quotes about Law: Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence. more John Adams quotes

John Adams, quotes about Law: The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. more John Adams quotes

John Adams, quotes about Law: If Aristotle, Livy, and Harrington knew what a republic was, the British constitution is much more like a republic than an empire. They define a republic to be a government of laws, and not of men. If this definition is just, the British constitution is nothing more or less than a republic, in which the king is first magistrate. This office being hereditary, and being possessed of such ample and splendid prerogatives, is no objection to the government's being a republic, as long as it is bound by fixed laws, which the people have a voice in making, and a right to defend. more John Adams quotes

John Quincy Adams, quotes about Law: The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy. more John Quincy Adams quotes

John Quincy Adams, quotes about Law: Law logic -- an artificial system of reasoning, exclusively used in courts of justice, but good for nothing anywhere else. more John Quincy Adams quotes

John Quincy Adams, quotes about Law: All the public business in Congress now connects itself with intrigues, and there is great danger that the whole government will degenerate into a struggle of cabals. more John Quincy Adams quotes

Samuel Adams, quotes about Law: Were the talents and virtues which heaven has bestowed on men given merely to make them more obedient drudges, to be sacrificed to the follies and ambition of a few? Or, were not the noble gifts so equally dispensed with a divine purpose and law, that they should as nearly as possible be equally exerted, and the blessings of Providence be equally enjoyed by all? more Samuel Adams quotes

Samuel Adams, quotes about Law:

The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men. more Samuel Adams quotes

Samuel Adams, quotes about Law: If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of Almighty God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave. more Samuel Adams quotes

American Bar Association, quotes about Law: It is the duty of the officials to prevent or suppress the threatened disorder with a firm hand instead of timidly yielding to threats…. Surely a speaker ought not to be suppressed because his opponents propose to use violence. It is they who should suffer from their lawlessness, not he. more American Bar Association quotes

American Bar Association, quotes about Law: I shall not counsel or maintain any suit or proceeding which shall appear to me to be unjust, nor any defense except such as I believe to be honestly debatable under the law of the land. more American Bar Association quotes

Henri-Frédéric Amiel, quotes about Law: The test of every religious, political, or educational system is the man that it forms. more Henri-Frédéric Amiel quotes

Susan B. Anthony, quotes about Law: It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. more Susan B. Anthony quotes

Aristotle, quotes about Law: It makes no difference whether a good man has defrauded a bad man, or a bad man defrauded a good man, or whether a good or bad man has committed adultery: the law can look only to the amount of damage done. more Aristotle quotes

Thurman Arnold, quotes about Law: It is a part of the function of “law” to give recognition to ideas representing the exact opposite of established conduct. Most of the complications arise from the necessity of pretending to do one thing, while actually doing another. more Thurman Arnold quotes

Thurman Arnold, quotes about Law: The spectacle of a judge pouring over the picture of some nude, trying to ascertain the extent to which she arouses prurient interests, and then attempting to write an opinion which explains the difference between that nude and some other nude has elements of low comedy. more Thurman Arnold quotes

Lawrence Auster, quotes about Law: Once the government becomes the supplier of people's needs, there is

no limit to the needs that will be claimed as a basic right. more Lawrence Auster quotes

Dwight E. Avis, quotes about Law: Let me point this out now. Your income tax is 100 percent voluntary tax, and your liquor tax is 100 percent enforced tax. Now, the situation is as different as night and day. Consequently, your same rules just will not apply... more Dwight E. Avis quotes

Sir Francis Bacon, quotes about Law: One of the Seven [wise men of Greece] was wont to say: That laws were like cobwebs, where the small flies are caught and the great break through. more Sir Francis Bacon quotes

Sir Francis Bacon, quotes about Law: A just fear of an imminent danger, though there be no blow given, is a lawful cause of war. more Sir Francis Bacon quotes

Mayor Marion Barry, quotes about Law: What right does Congress have to go around making laws just because they deem it necessary? more Mayor Marion Barry quotes

Frederic Bastiat, quotes about Law: When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law. more Frederic Bastiat quotes

Frederic Bastiat, quotes about Law: Sometimes the law defends plunder and participates in it. Thus the beneficiaries are spared the shame and danger that their acts would otherwise involve... But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them and gives it to the other persons to whom it doesn't belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish that law without delay ... No legal plunder; this is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony and logic. more Frederic Bastiat quotes

Frederic Bastiat, quotes about Law: There is in all of us a strong disposition to believe that anything lawful is also legitimate. This belief is so widespread that many persons have erroneously held that things are “just” because the law makes them so. more Frederic Bastiat quotes

Frederic Bastiat, quotes about Law: Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. more Frederic Bastiat quotes

Frederic Bastiat, quotes about Law: No legal plunder: This is the principle of justice, peace, order, stability, harmony, and logic. Until the day of my death, I shall proclaim this principle with all the force of my lungs (which alas! is all too inadequate). more Frederic Bastiat quotes

Dan Baum, quotes about Law: The country's first drug ban explicitly targeted the opium of "the heathen Chinee." Cocaine was first banned in the south to prevent an uprising of

hopped-up "cocainized Negroes." more Dan Baum quotes

Dan Baum, quotes about Law: The [Supreme] Court during the past decade let police obtain search warrants on the strength of anonymous tips. It did away with the need for warrants when police want to search luggage, trash cans, car interiors, bus passengers, fenced private property and barns. more Dan Baum quotes

Dan Baum, quotes about Law: The Supreme Court is steadily eroding the protections against police excess promised by the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. more Dan Baum quotes

Dan Baum, quotes about Law: It's gotten to where defense attorneys in federal drug cases can do their clients about as much good as Dr. Kevorkian can do his -- quietly shepherd them through to the least painful end. more Dan Baum quotes

Thomas Y. Bayard, quotes about Law: Religious liberty is the chief cornerstone of the American system of government, and provisions for its security are embedded in the written charter and interwoven in the moral fabric of its laws. more Thomas Y. Bayard quotes

Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, quotes about Law: Liberty is the soul's right to breathe and, when it cannot take a long breath, laws are girdled too tight. more Rev. Henry Ward Beecher quotes

Paul Begala, quotes about Law: Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kinda cool. more Paul Begala quotes

John Biggs, Jr., quotes about Law: Let us revise our views and work from the premise that all laws should be for the welfare of society as a whole and not directed at the punishment of sins. more John Biggs, Jr. quotes

Justice Hugo L. Black, quotes about Law: The layman’s constitutional view is that what he likes is constitutional and that which he doesn’t like is unconstitutional. more Justice Hugo L. Black quotes

Justice Hugo L. Black, quotes about Law: The public welfare demands that constitutional cases must be decided according to the terms of the Constitution itself, and not according to judges’ views of fairness, reasonableness, or justice. more Justice Hugo L. Black quotes

Justice Hugo L. Black, quotes about Law: I am for the First Amendment from the first word to the last. I believe it means what it says. more Justice Hugo L. Black quotes

Justice Hugo L. Black, quotes about Law: The layman's constitutional view is that what he likes is constitutional and that which he doesn't like is unconstitutional.

more Justice Hugo L. Black quotes

Justice Hugo L. Black, quotes about Law: Compelling a man by law to pay his money to elect candidates or advocate law or doctrines he is against differs only in degree, if at all, from compelling him by law to speak for a candidate, a party, or a cause he is against. The very reason for the First Amendment is to make the people of this country free to think, speak, write and worship as they wish, not as the Government commands. more Justice Hugo L. Black quotes

Justice Hugo L. Black, quotes about Law: The interest of the people lies in being able to join organizations, advocate causes, and make political “mistakes” without being subjected to governmental penalties. more Justice Hugo L. Black quotes

Sir William Blackstone, quotes about Law: And, lastly, to vindicate these rights, when actually violated and attacked, the subjects of England are entitled, in the first place, to the regular administration and free course of justice in the courts of law; next to the right of petitioning the king and parliament for redress of grievances; and, lastly, to the right of having and using arms for self preservation and defense. more Sir William Blackstone quotes

Sir William Blackstone, quotes about Law: That the king can do no wrong is a necessary and fundamental principle of the English constitution. more Sir William Blackstone quotes

Curtis Bok, quotes about Law: In the whole history of law and order, the biggest step was taken by primitive man when...the tribe sat in a circle and allowed only one man to speak at a time. An accused who is shouted down has no rights whatever. more Curtis Bok quotes

Napoleon Bonaparte, quotes about Law: Not one cent should be raised unless it is in accord with the law. more Napoleon Bonaparte quotes

William E. Borah, quotes about Law: No more fatuous chimera has ever infested the brain than that you can control opinions by law or direct belief by statute, and no more pernicious sentiment ever tormented the heart than the barbarous desire to do so. The field of inquiry should remain open, and the right of debate must be regarded as a sacred right. more William E. Borah quotes

William E. Borah, quotes about Law: Without an unfettered press, without liberty of speech, all of the outward forms and structures of free institutions are a sham, a pretense -- the sheerest mockery. If the press is not free; if speech is not independent and untrammeled; if the mind is shackled or made impotent through fear, it makes no difference under what form of government you live, you are a subject and not a citizen. more William E. Borah quotes

Robert Bork, quotes about Law: [A] society deadened by a smothering network of laws while finding release in moral chaos is not likely to be either happy or stable. more Robert Bork quotes

Justice Louis D. Brandeis, quotes about Law: Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law breaker, it breeds contempt for the law. more Justice Louis D. Brandeis quotes

Justice Louis D. Brandeis, quotes about Law: The government is the potent omnipresent teacher. For good or ill it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that the end justifies the means -- to declare that the government may commit crimes -- would bring terrible retribution. more Justice Louis D. Brandeis quotes

Justice Louis D. Brandeis, quotes about Law: Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen... If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. more Justice Louis D. Brandeis quotes

Justice Louis D. Brandeis, quotes about Law: Ways may someday be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home. more Justice Louis D. Brandeis quotes

Justice Louis D. Brandeis, quotes about Law: To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means – to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal – would bring terrible retribution. more Justice Louis D. Brandeis quotes

Robert Briffault, quotes about Law: Absolutism is a guarantee of objectionable morals in the same way that absolutism in government is a guarantee of objectionable government. more Robert Briffault quotes

James Buchanan, quotes about Law: What is right and what is practicable are two different things. more James Buchanan quotes

William F. Buckley, Jr., quotes about Law: All that is good is not embodied in the law; and all that is evil is not proscribed by the law. A well-disciplined society needs few laws; but it needs strong mores. more William F. Buckley, Jr. quotes

William F. Buckley, Jr., quotes about Law: We are so concerned to flatter the majority that we lose sight of how very often it is necessary, in order to preserve freedom for the minority, let alone for the individual, to face that majority down. more William F. Buckley, Jr. quotes

William F. Buckley, Jr., quotes about Law: Marijuana is not much more difficult to obtain than beer. The reason for this is that a liquor store selling beer to a minor stands to lose its liquor license. Marijuana salesmen don't have expensive overheads, and so are not easily punished. more William F. Buckley, Jr. quotes

Justice Warren E. Burger, quotes about Law: Judges ... rule on the basis of law, not public opinion, and they should be totally indifferent to pressures of the times. more Justice Warren E. Burger quotes

Justice Warren E. Burger, quotes about Law: Concepts of justice must have hands and feet or they remain sterile abstractions. The hands and feet we need are efficient means and methods to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and at the lowest possible cost. more Justice Warren E. Burger quotes

Edmund Burke, quotes about Law: People crushed by law have no hope but from power. If laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to laws; and those who have much to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous... more Edmund Burke quotes

Edmund Burke, quotes about Law: 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. more Edmund Burke quotes

William S. Burroughs, quotes about Law: Once the law starts asking questions, there's no stopping them. more William S. Burroughs quotes

Sir Richard Francis Burton, quotes about Law: Do what thy manhood bids thee do, From none but self expect applause: He noblest lives and noblest dies Who makes and keeps his self-made laws. more Sir Richard Francis Burton quotes

Samuel Butler, quotes about Law: Authority intoxicates, And makes mere sots of magistrates; The fumes of it invade the brain, And make men giddy, proud and vain. more Samuel Butler quotes

Edmond Cahn, quotes about Law: “Due process,” a standard that arose in our system of law and stemmed from the desire to provide rational procedure and fair play, is equally indispensable in every other kind of social or political enterprise. more Edmond Cahn quotes

William J. Campbell, quotes about Law: Today the grand jury is the total captive of the prosecutor who, if he is candid, will concede that he can indict anybody, at any time, for almost anything, before any grand jury. more William J. Campbell quotes

Albert Camus, quotes about Law: How many crimes are permitted simply because their authors could not endure being wrong. more Albert Camus quotes

Al Capone, quotes about Law: When I sell liquor, it's called bootlegging; when my patrons serve it on Lake Shore Drive, it's called hospitality. more Al Capone quotes

G. R. Capp, quotes about Law: You cannot become a truly effective advocate unless you know all sides

of your subject thoroughly, opposing arguments as well as your own. more G. R. Capp quotes

Richard Carlile, quotes about Law: Free discussion is the only necessary Constitution -- the only necessary Law of the Constitution. more Richard Carlile quotes

William Carr, quotes about Law: ...no nation which signs this [UN] Charter can justly maintain that any of its acts are its own business, or within its own domestic jurisdiction, if the security council says that these acts are a threat to the peace. more William Carr quotes

Jimmy Carter, quotes about Law: The law is not the private property of lawyers, nor is justice the exclusive province of judges and juries. In the final analysis, true justice is not a matter of courts and law books, but of a commitment in each of us to liberty and mutual respect. more Jimmy Carter quotes

John Casey, quotes about Law: The growth of drug-related crime is a far greater evil to society as a whole than drug taking. Even so, because we have been seduced by the idea that governments should legislate for our own good, very few people can see how dangerously absurd the present policy is. more John Casey quotes

Carrie Chapman Catt, quotes about Law: There are two kinds of restrictions on human liberty -- the restraint of law and that of custom. No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion. more Carrie Chapman Catt quotes

Raymond Chandler, quotes about Law: He didn't know the right people. That's all a police record means in this rotten crime-ridden country. more Raymond Chandler quotes

Raymond Chandler, quotes about Law: 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. more Raymond Chandler quotes

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, quotes about Law: Any one of the strange laws we suffer is a compromise between a fad and a vested interest. more Gilbert Keith Chesterton quotes

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, quotes about Law: He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative. more Gilbert Keith Chesterton quotes

Chinese Proverb, quotes about Law: Laws control the lesser man. Right conduct controls the greater one. more Chinese Proverb quotes

Sir Winston Churchill, quotes about Law: The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist. more Sir Winston Churchill quotes

Sir Winston Churchill, quotes about Law: If you have 10,000 regulations, you destroy all respect for the law. more Sir Winston Churchill quotes

Sir Winston Churchill, quotes about Law: The main vice of capitalism is the uneven distribution of prosperity. The main vice of socialism is the even distribution of misery. more Sir Winston Churchill quotes

Sir Winston Churchill, quotes about Law: You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer. more Sir Winston Churchill quotes

Marcus Tullius Cicero, quotes about Law: The more laws, the less justice. more Marcus Tullius Cicero quotes

Marcus Tullius Cicero, quotes about Law: We are in bondage to the law in order that we may be free. more Marcus Tullius Cicero quotes

Marcus Tullius Cicero, quotes about Law: Liberty consists in the power of doing that which is permitted by the law. more Marcus Tullius Cicero quotes

Marcus Tullius Cicero, quotes about Law: When you have no basis for argument, abuse the plaintiff. more Marcus Tullius Cicero quotes

Quintus Tullius Cicero, quotes about Law: During war, the laws are silent. more Quintus Tullius Cicero quotes

Bill Clinton, quotes about Law: We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans... more Bill Clinton quotes

Cockrum v. State, quotes about Law: The right of a citizen to bear arms, in lawful defense of himself or the State, is absolute. He does not derive it from the State government. It is one of the high powers delegated directly to the citizen, and is excepted out of the general powers of government. A law cannot be passed to infringe upon or impair it, because it is above the law, and independent of the lawmaking power. more Cockrum v. State quotes

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, quotes about Law: Every reform, however necessary, will by weak minds be carried to an excess, that itself will need reforming. more Samuel Taylor Coleridge quotes

Charles Caleb Colton, quotes about Law: The victim to too severe a law is considered as a martyr rather than a criminal. more Charles Caleb Colton quotes

Henry Steele Commager, quotes about Law: Every effort to confine Americanism to a single pattern, to constrain it to a single formula, is disloyalty to everything that is valid in Americanism. more Henry Steele Commager quotes

Benjamin Constant, quotes about Law: No duty, however, binds us to these so-called laws, whose corrupting influence menaces what is noblest in our being... more Benjamin Constant quotes

Benjamin Constant, quotes about Law: First ask yourselves, Gentlemen, what an Englishman, a Frenchman, and a citizen of the United States of America understand today by the word 'liberty'. For each of them it is the right to be subjected only to the laws, and to be neither arrested, detained, put to death nor maltreated in any way by the arbitrary will of one or more individuals. It is the right of everyone to express their opinion, choose a profession and practice it, to dispose of property, and even to abuse it; to come and go without permission, and without having to account for their motives or undertakings. It is everyone's right to associate with other individuals, either to discuss their interests, or to profess the religion which they or their associates prefer, or even simply to occupy their days or hours in a way which is more compatible with their inclinations or whims. Finally, it is everyone's right to exercise some influence on the administration of the government, either by electing all or particular officials, or through representations, petitions, demands to which the authorities are more or less compelled to pay heed. Now compare this liberty with that of the ancients. The latter consisted in exercising collectively, but directly, several parts of the complete sovereignty; in deliberating, in the public square, over war and peace; in forming alliances with foreign governments; in voting laws, in pronouncing judgments; in examining the accounts, the acts, the stewardship of the magistrates; in calling them to appear in front of the assembled people, in accusing, condemning or absolving them. But if this was what the ancients called liberty, they admitted as compatible with this collective freedom the complete subjection of the individual to the authority of the community. more Benjamin Constant quotes

Constitution for the USA, quotes about Law: We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. more Constitution for the USA quotes

Calvin Coolidge, quotes about Law: I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement. more Calvin Coolidge quotes

Calvin Coolidge, quotes about Law: We do not need more intellectual power, we need more moral power. We do not need more knowledge, we need more character. We do not need more government, we need more culture. We do not need more law, we need more religion. We do not need more of the things that are seen, we need more of the things that are unseen.... If the foundation is firm, the superstructure will stand. more Calvin Coolidge quotes

Calvin Coolidge, quotes about Law: A wholesome regard for the memory of the great men of long ago is the best assurance to a people of a continuation of great men to come, who shall be able to instruct, to lead, and to inspire. A people who worship at the shrine of true greatness will themselves be truly great. more Calvin Coolidge quotes

Thomas Cooper, quotes about Law: The law, unfortunately, has always been retained on the side of power; laws have uniformly been enacted for the protection and perpetuation of power. more Thomas Cooper quotes

Norman Cousins, quotes about Law: History is a vast early warning system. more Norman Cousins quotes

Patrick Cox, quotes about Law: The holier-than-thou activists who blame the population for not spending more money on their personal crusades are worse than aggravating. They encourage the repudiation of personal responsibility by spreading the lie that support of a government program fulfills individual moral duty. more Patrick Cox quotes

Donald R. Cressey, quotes about Law: Things in law tend to be black and white. But we all know that some people are a little bit guilty, while other people are guilty as hell. more Donald R. Cressey quotes

John Philpot Curran, quotes about Law: It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become prey to the active. The conditions upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt. more John Philpot Curran quotes

Clarence S. Darrow, quotes about Law: The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business. more Clarence S. Darrow quotes

Clarence S. Darrow, quotes about Law: There is no justice, in or out of court. more Clarence S. Darrow quotes

Clarence S. Darrow, quotes about Law: There is no such crime as a crime of thought; there are only crimes of action. more Clarence S. Darrow quotes

Justice David Davis, quotes about Law: The Constitution of the United States is a law for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace, and covers with the shield of its protection all classes of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No doctrine, involving more pernicious consequences, was ever invented by the wit of man than that any of its provisions can be suspended during any of the great exigencies of government. Such a doctrine leads directly to anarchy or despotism, but the theory of necessity on which it is based is false; for the government, within the Constitution, has all the powers granted to it, which are necessary to preserve its existence; as has been happily proved by the result of the great effort to throw off its just authority. more Justice David Davis quotes

John De Armond, quotes about Law: You know your country is dying when you have to make a distinction between what is moral and ethical, and what is legal. more John De Armond quotes

Charles de Gaulle, quotes about Law:

In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant. more Charles de Gaulle quotes

Michel de Montaigne, quotes about Law: Laws are maintained in credit, not because they are essentially just, but because they are laws. It is the mystical foundation of their authority; they have none other. more Michel de Montaigne quotes

Charles de Montesquieu, quotes about Law: 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. more Charles de Montesquieu quotes

Charles-Louis de Secondat, quotes about Law: There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice. more Charles-Louis de Secondat quotes

Charles-Louis de Secondat, quotes about Law: Useless laws weaken necessary laws. more Charles-Louis de Secondat quotes

Charles-Louis De Secondat, quotes about Law: We ought to be very cautious in the prosecution of magic and heresy. The attempt to put down these two crimes may be extremely perilous to liberty, and may be the origin of a number of petty acts of tyranny if the legislator be not on his guard; for as such an accusation does not bear directly on the overt acts of a citizen, but refers to the idea we entertain of his character. more Charles-Louis De Secondat quotes

Alexis de Tocqueville, quotes about Law: Quand donc je refuse d'obéir à une loi injuste, je ne dénie point à la majorité le droit de commander; j'en appelle seulement de la souveraineté du peuple à la souveraineté du genre humain. Il y a des gens qui n'ont pas craint de dire qu'un peuple, dans les objets qui n'intéressaient que lui-même, ne pouvait sortir entièrement des limites de la justice et de la raison, et qu'ainsi on ne devait pas craindre de donner tout pouvoir à la majorité qui le représente. Mais c'est là un langage d'esclave. more Alexis de Tocqueville quotes

Alexis de Tocqueville, quotes about Law: After having thus successively taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting. Such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd. more Alexis de Tocqueville quotes

Alan Dershowitz, quotes about Law: Imagine a legal system in which lawyers were equated with the clients they defended and were condemned for representing controversial or despised clients. more Alan Dershowitz quotes

Alan Dershowitz, quotes about Law: If we move away from the American tradition of lawyers defending those with whom they vehemently disagree -- as we temporarily did during the McCarthy period -- we weaken our commitment to the rule of law... So beware of an approach which limits advocacy to that which is approved by the standards of political correctness. more Alan Dershowitz quotes

Louis Dolivet, quotes about Law: The United States has no jurisdiction. No representative of administrative, judicial, military, or police authority of the United States may enter that zone without permission of the Secretary-General. In short: as long as the seat of the United Nations remains within the United States, the area occupied by the United Nations is considered as extraterritorial [separate from the United States] with full diplomatic privileges and immunities. more Louis Dolivet quotes

Justice William O. Douglas, quotes about Law: The right to be let alone is indeed the beginning of all freedom. more Justice William O. Douglas quotes

Justice William O. Douglas, quotes about Law: Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order, to efficiency of operation, to scientific advancement and the like. more Justice William O. Douglas quotes

Justice William O. Douglas, quotes about Law: The Constitution is not neutral. It was designed to take the government off the backs of people. more Justice William O. Douglas quotes

Justice William O. Douglas, quotes about Law: The function of the prosecutor under the federal Constitution is not to tack as many skins of victims as possible against the wall. His function is to vindicate the rights of the people as expressed in the laws and give those accused of crime a fair trial. more Justice William O. Douglas quotes

Justice William O. Douglas, quotes about Law: The Fifth Amendment is an old friend and a good friend. It is one of the great landmarks in men’s struggle to be free of tyranny, to be decent and civilized. more Justice William O. Douglas quotes

John Foster Dulles, quotes about Law: Of all the tasks of government, the most basic is to protect its citizens from violence. more John Foster Dulles quotes

Finley Peter Dunne, quotes about Law: An appeal is when you ask one court to show its contempt for another

court. more Finley Peter Dunne quotes

Will Durant, quotes about Law: In my youth, I stressed freedom, and in my old age I stress order. I have made the great discovery that liberty is a product of order. more Will Durant quotes

Will Durst, quotes about Law: Criminal lawyer. Or is that redundant? more Will Durst quotes

Albert Einstein, quotes about Law: Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be a spirit of tolerance in the entire population. more Albert Einstein quotes

Albert Einstein, quotes about Law: The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this. more Albert Einstein quotes

Albert Einstein, quotes about Law: As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality. more Albert Einstein quotes

Dwight D. Eisenhower, quotes about Law: We have never stopped sin by passing laws; and in the same way, we are not going to take a great moral ideal and achieve it merely by law. more Dwight D. Eisenhower quotes

Ralph Waldo Emerson, quotes about Law: Every actual state is corrupt. Good men must not obey laws too well. more Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes

Ralph Waldo Emerson, quotes about Law: In dealing with the State, we ought to remember that its institutions are not aboriginal, though they existed before we were born; that they are not superior to the citizen; that every one of them was once the act of a single man; every law and usage was a man's expedient to meet a particular case; that they all are imitable, all alterable; we may make as good; we may make better. more Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes

Ralph Waldo Emerson, quotes about Law: Good men must not obey the laws too well. more Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes

Thomas Erskine, quotes about Law: The liberty of the press would be an empty sound, and no man would venture to write on any subject, however, pure his purpose, without an attorney at one elbow and a counsel at the other. From minds thus subdued by the fear of punishment, there could issue no works of genius to expand the empire of human reason. more Thomas Erskine quotes

Thomas Erskine, quotes about Law: What is the fairest fruit of the English Tree of Liberty? The security of our rights and of the law, and that no man shall be brought to trial where there is a prejudice against him. more Thomas Erskine quotes

Grant Fairley, quotes about Law: When dealing with a legal matter - always remember that you are your own best advocate. No one will care as much about the case as you do. Use lawyers but remember - you must take primary responsibility for a successful outcome. more Grant Fairley quotes

Shelia Fitzpatrick, quotes about Law: The mission of the Gestapo expanded steadily as, from 1933 onward, “political criminality” was given a much broader definition than ever before and most forms of dissent and criticism were gradually criminalized. The result was that more “laws” or lawlike measures were put on the books than ever. more Shelia Fitzpatrick quotes

Andrew Fletcher, quotes about Law: Let me write the songs of a nation - I don't care who writes its laws. more Andrew Fletcher quotes

Sir John Fortescue, quotes about Law: I should, indeed, prefer twenty men to escape death through mercy, than one innocent to be condemned unjustly. more Sir John Fortescue quotes

Jay Fox, quotes about Law: Every attempt to gag the free expression of thought is an unsocial act against society. That is why judges and juries who try to enforce such laws make themselves ridiculous. more Jay Fox quotes

Anatole France, quotes about Law: The Law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. more Anatole France quotes

Benjamin Franklin, quotes about Law: Our Constitution is in actual operation; everything appears to promise that it will last; but in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes. more Benjamin Franklin quotes

Benjamin Franklin, quotes about Law: All the property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it. more Benjamin Franklin quotes

David Friedman, quotes about Law: The direct use of physical force is so poor a solution to the problem of limited resources that it is commonly employed only by small children and

great nations. more David Friedman quotes

Milton Friedman, quotes about Law: Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program. more Milton Friedman quotes

Robert Frost, quotes about Law: A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer. more Robert Frost quotes

Dr. Thomas Fuller, quotes about Law: The more laws the more offenders. more Dr. Thomas Fuller quotes

Dr. Thomas Fuller, quotes about Law: The more laws the more offenders. more Dr. Thomas Fuller quotes

Rocco Galati, quotes about Law: 19 terrorists in 6 weeks have been able to command 300 million North Americans to do away with the entirety of their civil liberties that took 700 years to advance from the Magna Carta onward. The terrorists have already won the political and ideological war with one terrorist act. It is mindboggling that we are that weak as a society. more Rocco Galati quotes

Galileo Galilei, quotes about Law: In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. more Galileo Galilei quotes

Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi, quotes about Law: There is a higher court than courts of justice and that is the court of conscience. It supercedes all other courts. more Mahatma Mohandas K. Gandhi quotes

Jean Genet, quotes about Law: Power may be at the end of a gun, but sometimes it's also at the end of the shadow or the image of a gun. more Jean Genet quotes

Henry George, quotes about Law: It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve. more Henry George quotes

Georgia, Declaration of Rights, Art.I, Sec.II, Para. I, quotes about Law: The jury in all criminal cases, shall be the judges of the law and the facts. more Georgia, Declaration of Rights, Art.I, Sec.II, Para. I quotes

Edward Gibbon, quotes about Law: Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind. more Edward Gibbon quotes

Hermann Goering, quotes about Law: Why of course the people don't want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally the common people don't want war neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country. more Hermann Goering quotes

Justice Arthur Goldberg, quotes about Law: It is fundamental that the great powers of Congress to conduct war and to regulate the Nation's foreign relations are subject to the constitutional requirements of due process. The imperative necessity for safeguarding these rights to procedural due process under the gravest of emergencies has existed throughout our constitutional history, for it is then, under the pressing exigencies of crisis, that there is the greatest temptation to dispense with fundamental constitutional guarantees which, it is feared, will inhibit governmental action. more Justice Arthur Goldberg quotes

Barry Goldwater, quotes about Law: I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution ... or have failed their purpose ... or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is 'needed' before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should be attacked for neglecting my constituents' 'interests,' I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty, and in that cause I am doing the very best I can. more Barry Goldwater quotes

John Goodwin, quotes about Law: Freedom of conscience is a natural right, both antecedent and superior to all human laws and institutions whatever; a right which laws never gave and a right which laws can never take away. more John Goodwin quotes

Paul Greenberg, quotes about Law: For the average American family, filling out a tax form has become like attacking a puzzle to which, often enough, there is no right answer. But we're all supposed to swear, on penalty of perjury, that we've done our best to find it. more Paul Greenberg quotes

A. K. Griffin, quotes about Law: If it weren't for lawyers, we wouldn't need them. more A. K. Griffin quotes

Alexander Hamilton, quotes about Law: No legislative act contrary to the Constitution can be valid. To deny this

would be to affirm that the deputy (agent) is greater than his principal; that the servant is above the master; that the representatives of the people are superior to the people; that men, acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid. It is not to be supposed that the Constitution could intend to enable the representatives of the people to substitute their will to that of their constituents. A Constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by judges as fundamental law. If there should happen to be a irreconcilable variance between the two, the Constitution is to be preferred to the statute. more Alexander Hamilton quotes

Alexander Hamilton, quotes about Law: If it be asked, What is the most sacred duty and the greatest source of our security in a Republic? The answer would be, An inviolable respect for the Constitution and Laws. more Alexander Hamilton quotes

Judge Learned Hand, quotes about Law: Anyone may arrange his affairs so that his taxes shall be as low as possible; he is not bound to choose that pattern which best pays the treasury. There is not even a patriotic duty to increase one's taxes. Over and over again the Courts have said that there is nothing sinister in so arranging affairs as to keep taxes as low as possible. Everyone does it, rich and poor alike and all do right, for nobody owes any public duty to pay more than the law demands. more Judge Learned Hand quotes

Fredrich August von Hayek, quotes about Law: It used to be the boast of free men that, so long as they kept within the bounds of the known law, there was no need to ask anybody's permission or to obey anybody's orders. It is doubtful whether any of us can make this claim today. more Fredrich August von Hayek quotes

Fredrich August von Hayek, quotes about Law: I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice. more Fredrich August von Hayek quotes

Fredrich August von Hayek, quotes about Law: The system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. more Fredrich August von Hayek quotes

Robert A. Heinlein, quotes about Law: The two highest achievements of the human mind are the twin concepts of "loyalty" and "duty". Whenever these twin concepts fall into disrepute, get out of there fast! You may possibly save yourself, but it is too late to save that society. It is doomed. more Robert A. Heinlein quotes

Robert A. Heinlein, quotes about Law: Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Nations and peoples who forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.

more Robert A. Heinlein quotes

Lillian Hellman, quotes about Law: Since when do you have to agree with people to defend them from injustice? more Lillian Hellman quotes

Ernest Hemingway, quotes about Law: Everyone has his own conscience, and there should be no rules about how a conscience should function. more Ernest Hemingway quotes

Ammon Hennacy, quotes about Law: Oh, judge, your damn laws: the good people don't need them and the bad people don't follow them so what good are they? more Ammon Hennacy quotes

Ammon Hennacy, quotes about Law: An anarchist is anyone who doesn't need a cop to tell him what to do. more Ammon Hennacy quotes

Heraclitus, quotes about Law: The people must fight for their laws as for their walls. more Heraclitus quotes

Frank Herbert, quotes about Law: The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we intend toward each other. Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. You have done violence to him, consumed his energy. more Frank Herbert quotes

Frank Herbert, quotes about Law: Laws to suppress tend to strengthen what they would prohibit. This is the fine point on which all legal professions of history have based their job security. more Frank Herbert quotes

Charlton Heston, quotes about Law: Political correctness is simply tyranny with manners. more Charlton Heston quotes

Hillel, quotes about Law: What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow; that is the whole Law: all the rest is interpretation. more Hillel quotes

Adolf Hitler, quotes about Law: Without law and order our nation cannot survive. more Adolf Hitler quotes

Eric Hoffer, quotes about Law: The basic test of freedom is perhaps less in what we are free to do than in what we are free not to do. more Eric Hoffer quotes

Frank E. Holman, quotes about Law: The president of the American Bar Association begins a nationwide tour, giving speeches on the dangers of Treaty Law: 'The doctrine that the treaty power is unlimited and omnipotent and may be used to OVERRIDE the Constitution and the Bill of Rights...is a doctrine of recent origin and

largely derived from Missouri v. Holland.' more Frank E. Holman quotes

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., quotes about Law: I think that we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe and believe to be fraught with death, unless they so imminently threaten immediate interference with the lawful and pressing purposes of the law that an immediate check is required to save the country... Only the emergency that makes it immediately dangerous to leave the correction of evil counsels to time warrants making any exception to the sweeping command, 'Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech.' more Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. quotes

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., quotes about Law: If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought -- not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate. more Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. quotes

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., quotes about Law: That at any rate is the theory of our Constitution. It is an experiment, as all life is an experiment. more Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. quotes

J. Edgar Hoover, quotes about Law: I regret to say that we of the FBI are powerless to act in cases of oralgenital intimacy, unless it has in some way obstructed interstate commerce. more J. Edgar Hoover quotes

J. Edgar Hoover, quotes about Law: Justice is incedental to law and order. more J. Edgar Hoover quotes

House Concurrent Resolution 64, quotes about Law: Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That it is the sense of Congress that it should be a fundamental objective of the foreign policy of the United States to support and strengthen the United Nations and to seek its development into a world federation ...with defined and limited powers adequate to preserve peace and prevent aggression through the enactment, interpretation, and enforcement of world law... more House Concurrent Resolution 64 quotes

Justice Charles Evans Hughes, quotes about Law: The Constitution is what the judges say it is. more Justice Charles Evans Hughes quotes

Justice Charles Evans Hughes, quotes about Law: It is the essence of the institutions of liberty that it be recognized that guilt is personal and cannot be attributed to the holding of opinions or to mere intent in the absence of overt acts. more Justice Charles Evans Hughes quotes

Hubert H. Humphrey, quotes about Law: There are not enough jails, not enough policemen, not enough courts to enforce a law not supported by the people. more Hubert H. Humphrey quotes

Aldous Huxley, quotes about Law: Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power. more Aldous Huxley quotes

Stephen Hymer, quotes about Law: The advantage of national planning is its ability to remove the wastes of oligopolistic anarchy, i.e. meaningless product differentiation and an imbalance between different industries within a geographical area. It concentrates all levels of decision making in one locale and thus provide each region with a full complement of skills and occupations. This opens up new horizons of local development by making possible the social and political control of economic decision-making. Multinational corporations, in contrast, weaken political control because they span many countries and can escape national regulation. more Stephen Hymer quotes

Justice Robert H. Jackson, quotes about Law: We are not final because we are infallible, but infallible only because we are final. more Justice Robert H. Jackson quotes

Justice Robert H. Jackson, quotes about Law: If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein. more Justice Robert H. Jackson quotes

Justice Robert H. Jackson, quotes about Law: The day that this country ceases to be free for irreligion, it will cease to be free for religion. more Justice Robert H. Jackson quotes

“Laws control the lesser man... Right conduct controls the greater one.” Mark Twain quotes (American Humorist, Writer and Lecturer. 1835-1910) Similar Quotes. About: Right quotes, Law and lawyers quotes. Add to Chapter...

“Never forget that everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.” Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes (American Baptist Minister and Civil-Rights Leader. 1929-1968) Similar Quotes. About: Law and lawyers quotes. Add to Chapter...

“Many of life's circumstances are created by three basic choices: the disciplines you choose to keep, the people you choose to be with; and, the laws you

choose to obey” Charles Millhuff quotes Similar Quotes. About: Life quotes, Law and lawyers quotes, People quotes, Discipline quotes. Add to Chapter...

“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.” Plato quotes (Ancient Greek Philosopher He was the world's most influential philosopher. 428 BC-348 BC) Similar Quotes. About: Law and lawyers quotes, People quotes. Add to Chapter...

“The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.” Ayn Rand quotes (Russian born American Writer and Novelist, 1905-1982) Similar Quotes. About: Government quotes, Law and lawyers quotes, Power quotes. Add to Chapter...

“Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law” Sophocles quotes (One of classical Athens' three great tragic playwrights) Similar Quotes. About: Politics quotes, Law and lawyers quotes. Add to Chapter...

“The law will never make men free, it is men that have to make the law free.” Henry David Thoreau quotes (American Essayist, Poet and Philosopher, 1817-1862) Similar Quotes. About: Law and lawyers quotes. Add to Chapter...

“A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.” Robert Frost quotes (American poet, 1874-1963) Similar Quotes. About: Law and lawyers quotes, Juries and Judges quotes. Add to Chapter...

“Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough.” Abraham Lincoln quotes (American 16th US President (1861-65), who brought about the emancipation of the slaves. 1809-1865) Similar Quotes. About: Relationships quotes, Law and lawyers quotes. Add to Chapter...

“Lawyers, I suppose, were children once.” Charles Lamb quotes (English Critic, Poet and Essayist, 1775-1834) Similar Quotes. About: Law and lawyers quotes. Add to Chapter... “He who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client” Proverb quotes Similar Quotes. About: Law and lawyers quotes, Foolishness quotes. Add to Chapter...

“I've never been in love. I've always been a lawyer.” Similar Quotes. About: Love quotes, Law and lawyers quotes. Add to Chapter...

“The more laws, the less justice.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero quotes (Ancient Roman Lawyer, Writer, Scholar, Orator and Statesman, 106 BC-43 BC) Similar Quotes. About: Law and lawyers quotes. Add to Chapter...

“A lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than a thousand men with guns.” Mario Puzo quotes Similar Quotes. About: Law and lawyers quotes. Add to Chapter...

“We are in bondage to the law so that we might be free” Marcus Tullius Cicero quotes (Ancient Roman Lawyer, Writer, Scholar, Orator and Statesman, 106 BC-43 BC) Similar Quotes. About: Freedom quotes, Law and lawyers quotes. Add to Chapter...

“The juries are our judges of all fact, and of law when they choose it.” Thomas Jefferson quotes (American 3rd US President (1801-09). Author of the Declaration of Independence. 1762-1826) Similar Quotes. About: Law and lawyers quotes, Judgement quotes, Juries and Judges quotes. Add to Chapter...

“Lawyers are men who hire out their words and anger.” Horace quotes (Ancient Roman Poet. 65 BC-8 BC) Similar Quotes. About: Law and lawyers quotes. Add to Chapter...

“A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed”

Rene Descartes quotes (French Mathematician, Philosopher and Scientist, 15961650) Similar Quotes. About: Law and lawyers quotes. Add to Chapter...

“It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirits whenever they have free scope” Niccolo Machiavelli quotes (Italian writer and statesman, Florentine patriot, author of 'The Prince', 1469-1527) Similar Quotes. About: Evil quotes, Law and lawyers quotes. Add to Chapter...

“Doctors are the same as lawyers; the only difference is that lawyers merely rob you, whereas doctors rob you and kill you too.” Anton Chekhov quotes (Russian playwright and master of the modern short story, 1860-1904) Similar Quotes. About: Law and lawyers quotes, Doctors quotes. Add to Chapter... In The Laws, probably the last dialogue written by Plato, the ideal State is founded in Crete. It is also a mental creation and it is called "Magnesia". If in The Republic the Athenian philosopher understood that the philosopher-king’s words could be considered fair and the best representation of the laws, in "Magnesia" he considers the written laws of great importance, above all due to their educational content. So, the spirit of the law should involve the citizen’s soul as a true ethos, i.e., the citizens must respect the laws due to their role in developing social cohesion, and not because they fear the punishments prescribed. According to Plato, every law has a transcendental foundation: God. He is the "norm of the norms, the measure of the measures" (ibid, p. 1341). In The Republic, the supreme universal principle is the Good that coincides, in The Laws, with God’s mind. God presents himself as the legislator of the legislators, maintaining an eminent pedagogical relationship with men: as good fountains always spot out sound water, God always prescribes what is fair. He is, therefore, the "universal pedagogue" (ibid, p. 1343). From this point on, Plato begins to pay more attention to the educational processes extent, i.e., it does not matter so much who education will point out as capable of ruling, but how many people will be prepared to exercise patriotism

during their lives. Therefore, Plato argues for the public character of education and that it has to be given in buildings especially built for that purpose. In these schools, boys and girls should receive the same teaching. Plato also thinks the educational process should start as soon as possible, and he suggests that threeto-six-year-old children should play different games, created by themselves or not. To the older children, Plato recommends playing the same games, with the same rules, as the one who is accustomed to be ruled by good principles will not feel, in the future, the need for changing the laws and the conventions approved by the community. As education takes a prominent position in the citizen’s formation, its supervision becomes crucial. An education minister, who must be well qualified and should not be less than fifty years old, should perform this task. He should be chosen among the best public servers by a secret election (carried out in the Apollo’s temple), but the one chosen e can’t be a member of the Nocturnal Council. The kind of government proposed in The Laws is a system that combines aspects of aristocracy and democracy. The state administration is carried out by different levels of servers, above which is the Nocturnal Council. This council is composed of the oldest and most honorable servers and is not elected by citizens. Nevertheless, its members could have been elected for the public posts occupied before entering the council. The main responsibilities of the Nocturnal Council are: 1. To develop philosophical studies in order to obtain thorough understanding of the laws ruling the State. 2. To establish an interchange with philosophers from other cities as to improve the laws of "Magnesia" 3. To make sure that the philosophical and legal principles the counselors respect performing their duties are outspread to all citizens.

Laws (dialogue) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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This article is part of the series:

The Dialogues of Plato Early dialogues: Apology - Charmides - Crito

Euthyphro - First Alcibiades Hippias Major - Hippias Minor Ion - Laches - Lysis Transitional & middle dialogues: Cratylus - Euthydemus - Gorgias Menexenus - Meno - Phaedo Protagoras - Symposium Later middle dialogues: The Republic - Phaedrus Parmenides - Theaetetus Late dialogues: Timaeus - Critias The Sophist – The Statesman Philebus - Laws Of doubtful authenticity: Clitophon – Epinomis Epistles - Hipparchus Minos - Rival Lovers Second Alcibiades - Theages The Laws is Plato's last and longest dialogue. The question asked at the beginning is not "What is law?" as one would expect- that is the question of the Minos. The kickoff question is rather, "Who is given the credit for laying down your laws?" It is generally agreed that Plato wrote this dialogue as an old man, having failed in his effort in Syracuse on the island of Sicily to guide a tyrant's rule, instead having been thrown in prison. These events are alluded to in the Seventh Letter.

Contents [hide] •

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1 Summary o 1.1 The setting o 1.2 Topics 2 Comparisons o 2.1 ...to other dialogues by Plato o 2.2 ...to other ancient accounts of Greek law systems 3 See also o 3.1 See also  3.1.1 Political content  3.1.2 Other aspects

o

3.2 External references  3.2.1 Regarding Plato's The Laws 

3.2.2 Other ancient texts about law systems

[edit] Summary [edit] The setting Unlike most of Plato's dialogues, Socrates does not appear in the Laws. This is fitting because the dialogue takes place on the island of Crete, and Socrates never appears outside of Athens in Plato's writings, except in the Phaedrus, where he is just outside the city's walls. Instead of Socrates we have the Athenian Stranger (in Greek, 'xenos') and two other old men, an ordinary Spartan citizen (Megillos) and a Cretan politician and lawgiver (Kleinias) from Knossos. The Athenian Stranger, who is much like Socrates but whose name is never given, joins the other two on their religious pilgrimage to the cave of Zeus. The entire dialogue takes place during this journey, which mimics the action of Minos, who is said by the Cretans to have made their ancient laws, who walked this path every nine years in order to receive instruction from Zeus on lawgiving. It is also said to be the longest day of the year, allowing for a densely-packed twelve chapters. By the end of the third chapter Kleinias announces that he has in fact been given the charge of laying down laws for a new Cretan colony, and that he would like the Stranger's assistance. The rest of the dialogue proceeds with the three old men, walking towards the cave and making laws for this new city.

[edit] Topics The questions of the Laws are without limit: • • • • • •

Divine revelation, divine law and lawgiving The role of intelligence in lawgiving The relations of philosophy, religion, and politics The role of music, exercise and dance in education Natural law and natural right ...

The dialogue uses primarily the Athenian and Spartan (Lacedaemonian) law systems as background for pinpointing a choice of laws, which the speakers imagine as a more or less coherent set for the new city they are talking about.

[edit] Comparisons [edit] ...to other dialogues by Plato

The Laws is similar to and yet in opposition to the Republic. It is similar in that both dialogues concern the making of a city in speech, but different in that the one city is ideal, and the other a real, practical city. The city of the Laws is described as "second best," whereas the beautiful city of the Republic is the best possible city. The city of the Laws differs in its allowance of private property and private families, and in the very existence of written laws, from the city of the Republic, with its communistic property-system, possession of women in common, and absence of written law. Also, whereas the Republic is a dialogue between Socrates and many young men (Cephalus goes to bed early, after attending to his boring old sacrifices), the Laws is a discussion among old men, where children are not allowed and there is always a pretence of piety and ritualism. All in all, while the Laws is more similar to the Republic than any other dialogue, they are so different that the Laws needs to be considered in its own right, as Plato's most serious and comprehensive contribution to political philosophy. It has the sense of a writer trying to get everything into his last work, yet its structure is comparable to the Symposium in its beauty and grace. Traditionally, the Minos is thought to be the preface, and the Epinomis the epilogue, to the Laws, but both may be spurious. In The Laws, Plato takes a harsh view of homosexuality, and proposes to legislate against it. This is a stark contrast to the Symposium and the Phaedrus, both of which present homosexuality in a positive light.

[edit] ...to other ancient accounts of Greek law systems Plato was not the only Ancient Greek author writing about the law systems of his day, and making comparisons between the Athenian and the Lacedaemonian/Spartan laws. Notably, The Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians, by Xenophon, another of Socrates' pupils, has also survived. Some centuries later Plutarch would also devote attention to the topic of Ancient Greek law systems, e.g. in his Life of Lykurgus. Lykurgus (or: Lycurgus) was the legendary law-giver of the Lacedaemonians. Plutarch compares Lycurgus (and his Spartan laws) to the law system Numa Pompilius introduced in Rome around 700 BC. Both Xenophon and Plutarch are stark admirers of the Spartan system, showing less reserve than Plato in expressing that admiration.

[edit] See also [edit] See also [edit] Political content •

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List of classics of political philosophy - List of writings (similar to the Laws) on political philosophy. Mixed government

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The Open Society and Its Enemies - Karl Popper attacking a totalitarian undercurrent in Plato's "political" works.

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Gymnasium (ancient Greece) and Gymnopaedia - Military exercise, sports and dancing as an educational asset.

[edit] Other aspects

[edit] External references [edit] Regarding Plato's The Laws •

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Kochin, Michael (2002). Gender and Rhetoric in Plato's Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-52180852-9. Pangle, Thomas L., 1980. The Laws of Plato, Translated, with Notes and an Interpretive Essay, New York, Basic Books. The Laws, available at Project Gutenberg., a 19th century translation.

[edit] Other ancient texts about law systems •

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Polity of the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians by Xenophon, available at Project Gutenberg. Works by Plutarch at Project Gutenberg (The text about Lykurgus is in Volume I of the Lives)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laws_%28dialogue%29"

Universal Law From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search For other uses, see Universal law In law and ethics, Universal Law or Universal Principle refers to concept of legal legitimacy whereby those principles and rules for governing human conduct which are most universal in their acceptablity, their applicability, translation, and philosophical basis, are therefore considered to be most legitimate. In contrast with International Law, which chooses from existing laws in application to form issuespecific precedent, Universal Law refers to the based and derived principles within such judgements, as they are cited and therefore become law. The most notable being

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which is routinely cited by various jurisdictions worldwide. (See also natural law).