Law Quotes

The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Our human laws are more or less imperfect copies of the external laws as we see them.

James A. Froude

The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular.

Edward Gibbon

The only road to the highest stations in this country is that of the law.

Sir William Jones

The kind of lawyer you hope the other fellow has.

Raymond Chandler

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

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The essence of tyranny is not iron law. It is capricious law.

Christopher Hitchens

Two types of people laugh at the law: those that break it and those that make it.

Terry Pratchett

In cross examination, as in fishing, nothing is more ungainly than a fisherman pulled into the water by his catch.

Louis Nizer

Not under man but under God and law.non sub homine sed sub deo et lege, The quotation frames the entry to the Harvard Law Library.

Henry de Bracton

Remaining for a moment with the question of legality and illegality: United Nations Security Council Resolution 1368, unanimously passed, explicitly recognized the right of the United States to self-defense and further called upon all member states 'to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of the terrorist attacks. It added that 'those responsible for aiding, supporting or harboring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of those acts will be held accountable.' In a speech the following month, the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan publicly acknowledged the right of self-defense as a legitimate basis for military action. The SEAL unit dispatched by President Obama to Abbottabad was large enough to allow for the contingency of bin-Laden's capture and detention. The naïve statement that he was 'unarmed' when shot is only loosely compatible with the fact that he was housed in a military garrison town, had a loaded automatic weapon in the room with him, could well have been wearing a suicide vest, had stated repeatedly that he would never be taken alive, was the commander of one of the most violent organizations in history, and had declared himself at war with the United States. It perhaps says something that not even the most casuistic apologist for al-Qaeda has ever even attempted to justify any of its 'operations' in terms that could be covered by any known law, with the possible exception of some sanguinary verses of the Koran.

Christopher Hitchens

There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we may obey. We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, but a successful life knows no law. It is an unfortunate discovery certainly, that of a law which binds us where we did not know before that we were bound. Live free, child of the mist--and with respect to knowledge we are all children of the mist. The man who takes the liberty to live is superior to all the laws, by virtue of his relation to the lawmaker. That is active duty, says the Vishnu Purana, which is not for our bondage; that is knowledge which is for our liberation: all other duty is good only unto weariness; all other knowledge is only the cleverness of an artist.http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/wlkng10.txt

Henry David Thoreau, Walking

The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself. There is no other principle distinctly, certainly, and consistently maintained through all its narrow turnings. Viewed by this light it becomes a coherent scheme, and not the monstrous maze the laity are apt to think it. Let them but once clearly perceive that its grand principle is to make business for itself at their expense, and surely they will cease to grumble.

Charles Dickens

[H]e is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.

George Bernard Shaw

Without knowing it, Javert in his awful happiness was deserving of pity, like every ignorant man who triumphs. Nothing could have been more poignant or more heartrending than that countenance on which was inscribed all the evil in what is good.

Victor Hugo

Law school taught me one thing; how to take two situations that are exactly the same and show how they are different.

Hart Pomerantz

Fish die when they are out of water, and people die without law and order.

The Talmud

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

Tacitus

The more corrupt the state, the more laws.

Tacitus

Our demands are simple, normal, and therefore they are difficult to satisfy. All we ask is that an actor on the stage live in accordance with natural laws

Konstantin Stanislavisky