Law

"There is no justice in following unjust laws. It’s time to come into the light and, in the grand tradition of civil disobedience, declare our opposition to this private theft of public culture."

"That which is not just, is not Law; and that which is not Law, ought not to be obeyed."

"Law is king of all."

"Necessity knows no law except to conquer."

"No man e'er felt the halter draw, With good opinion of the law."

"All this is but a web of the wit; it can work nothing."

"Laws are never as effective as habits."

"Do as adversaries do in law, Strive mightily, but eat and drink as friends."

"We are for law; he dies."

"Before I be convict by course of law, To threaten me with death is most unlawful."

"They have been grand-jurymen since before Noah was a sailor."

"It must not be; there is no power in Venice Can alter a decree established: 'Twill be recorded for a precedent; And many an error by the same example Will rush into the state."

"The bloody book of law You shall yourself read in the bitter letter After your own sense."

"Still you keep o' the windy side of the law."

"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."

"We have strict statutes and most biting laws."

"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."

"Bold of your worthiness, we single you As our best-moving fair solicitor."

"To offend, and judge, are distinct offices And of opposed natures."

"When law can do no right, Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong."

"In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt But, being season'd with a gracious voice, Obscures the show of evil?"

"When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, the only effect it produces upon me is to convince me that he is an unalterable fool."

"'Tis like the breath of an unfee'd lawyer; you gave me nothing for 't."

"But, I prithee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king? and resolution thus fobbed as it is with the rusty curb of old father antic the law?"

"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."

"But is this law? Ay, marry is 't; crowner's quest law."

"But in these nice sharp quillets of the law, Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw."

"You who wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wife and a fosset-seller; and then rejourn the controversy of three pence to a second day of audience."

"He hath resisted law, And therefore law shall scorn him further trial Than the severity of the public power."

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers."

"In the corrupted currents of this world, Offence'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 compell'd, Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, To give in evidence."

"The writers of our belief system caution us to make sure that the laws are just — that is, that they are not subverted by those in power for their own interest and permitted to become the means by which the powerful justify their rule and become masters of the many. In such conditions the laws become idols, and we end up worshipping false gods."

"Necessity creates the law, — it supersedes rules; and whatever is reasonable and just in such cases is likewise legal."

"To disrespect the masses is moral; to honor them, lawful."

"In the first place, it is not improper to observe, that the law of cases of necessity is not likely to be well furnished with precise rules; necessity creates the law, it supersedes rules; and whatever is reasonable and just in such cases, is likewise legal; it is not to be considered as matter of surprise, therefore, if much instituted rule is not to be found on such subjects."

"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.""

"Quædam iura non scripta, sed omnibus scriptis certiora sunt."

"Press not a falling man too far! 'tis virtue: His faults lie open to the laws; let them, Not you, correct him."

"Law is the rule, principle, obligation or requirement of natural justice."

"Law is a Bottomless-Pit, it is a Cormorant, a Harpy, that devours every thing."

"The man who more than any other, save Lincoln, had changed us into a nation whose citizens were all freemen, realized entirely that these freemen would remain free only while they kept mastery over their own evil passions. He saw that lawlessness in all its forms was the handmaiden of tyranny. No nation ever yet retained its freedom for any length of time after losing its respect for the law, after losing the law-abiding spirit, the spirit that really makes orderly liberty."

"The first essential of civilization is law. Anarchy is simply the handmaiden and forerunner of tyranny and despotism. Law and order enforced with justice and by strength lie at the foundations of civilization. Law must be based upon justice, else it cannot stand, and it must be enforced with resolute firmness, because weakness in enforcing it means in the end that there is no justice and no law, nothing but the rule of disorderly and unscrupulous strength. Without the habit of orderly obedience to the law, without the stern enforcement of the laws at the expense of those who defiantly resist them, there can be no possible progress, moral or material, in civilization. There can be no weakening of the law-abiding spirit here at home, if we are permanently to succeed; and just as little can we afford to show weakness abroad."

"Laws are only observed with the consent of the individuals concerned and a moral change still depends on the individual and not on the passage of any law."

"For my part, I never knew a social evil to be removed by force of law...The prevention of that social evil must commence in the nursery. If you will bring up woman as you ought to bring up men—not as you do bring up men—acknowledging her right to live the same as men, giving her the same advantages and the same rights that men have, there will be no need to enact laws against a "social evil…I say to the Legislature that, if you enact laws against social evils, whatever those laws are, let them be alike for man and for woman."

"We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions."

"…laws should always embody justice, otherwise justice becomes what laws arbitrarily decide it to be. And, as the Tai Ji Men case shows all too well after 29 years, and in this special year 2025, laws can sometimes be unjust."

"Every law the people has not ratified in person is null and void - is, in fact, not a law."

"As Bob Dylan forgot to say, "To live outside the law, you must be lucky.""

"Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he."

"I stand ready to negotiate, but I want no part of laws: I acknowledge none; I protest against every order with which some authority may feel pleased on the basis of some alleged necessity to over-rule my free will. Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of government."