Law

"Initia magistratum nostrorum meliora, ferme finis inclinat."

"It is important, of course, that controversies be settled right, but there are many civil questions which arise between individuals in which it is not so important the controversy be settled one way or another as that it be settled. Of course a settlement of a controversy on a fundamentally wrong principle of law is greatly to be deplored, but there must of necessity be many rules governing the relations between members of the same society that are more important in that their establishment creates a known rule of action than that they proceed on one principle or another. Delay works always for the man with the longest purse."

"What is hateful to thee, do not unto thy fellow; this is the whole law. All the rest is a commentary to this law; go and learn it."

"But speaking of rules, you've been arrested dozens of times in your life. Specific incidents aside, what's common to these run-ins? Where do you stand vis-à-vis the law? "Goddammit. Yeah, I have. First, there's a huge difference between being arrested and being guilty. Second, see, the law changes and I don't. How I stand vis-à-vis the law at any given moment depends on the law. The law can change from state to state, from nation to nation, from city to city. I guess I have to go by a higher law. How's that? Yeah, I consider myself a road man for the lords of karma.""

"The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free."

"Illegality is not to be presumed; it is to be alleged and proved when it does not appear on the face of the instrument itself."

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

"Law is the agent of those in political power; it is the product of those powerful enough to define right and wrong and to have that definition legitimized by “law.” This is not to say that “might makes right,” but it is to say that Might makes Law."

"Whereas Congress recognizes the historical tradition of ethical values and principles which are the basis of civilized society and upon which our great Nation was founded; Whereas these ethical values and principles have been the bedrock of society from the dawn of civilization, when they were known as the Seven Noahide Laws ..."

"Those who fear men like laws."

"In civilized life, law floats in a sea of ethics."

"In law there are “magic words.” If one of them applies to what you are challenging, you have a good chance of getting it overturned. Linda and I used all the magic words that might possibly apply: The statutes were “vague” and uncertain on their face; they were “unconstitutionally broad” on their face in that they infringed upon plaintiff’s “right to safe and adequate medical advice” about the decision of whether to carry a pregnancy to term, upon the “fundamental” right of all women to choose whether to bear children, and upon plaintiff’s “right to privacy” in the physician-patient relationship; on their face they infringed upon plaintiff’s “right to life” in violation of the due-process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; on their face they violated the “First Amendment” prohibition against laws respecting an establishment of religion; and on their face they denied plaintiffs the “equal protection of the laws.”"

"Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is divine. Far from being rivals or enemies religion and law are twin sisters, friends, and mutual assistance. Indeed, these two sciences run into each other."

"American industry is not free, as once it was free; American enterprise is not free; the man with only a little capital is finding it harder to get into the field, more and more impossible to compete with the big fellow. Why? Because the laws of this country do not prevent the strong from crushing the weak. That is the reason, and because the strong have crushed the weak the strong dominate the industry and the economic life of this country."

""Whatever a despot by enactment constrains the citizens to do without persuasion, is the negation of law?”“Everything, I think, that men constrain others to do without persuasion, whether by enactment or not, is not law, but force.”"

"Law is the backbone which keeps man erect."

"Because of plea-bargaining, I guess we can say, "Gee, the trains run on time." But do we like where they are going?"

"“There’s no justice, John! There is no reason at all for me to be kept here!”"

"Necessitas non habet legem"

"Ove son leggi, Tremar non dee chi leggi non infranse."

"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."

"Law is a bottomless pit."

"One of the Seven was wont to say: "That laws were like cobwebs; where the small flies were caught, and the great brake through.""

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

"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.""

"I do not know the method of drawing up an indictment against an whole people."

"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?"

"The law of England is the greatest grievance of the nation, very expensive and dilatory."

"The law of heaven and earth is life for life."

"Arms and laws do not flourish together."

"Who to himself is law, no law doth need, Offends no law, and is a king indeed."

"Jus gentium."

"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.""

"Silent enim leges inter arma."

"After an existence of nearly twenty years of almost innocuous desuetude these laws are brought forth."

"Magna Charta is such a fellow that he will have no sovereign."

"Reason is the life of the law; nay, the common law itself is nothing else but reason. * * * The law which is perfection of reason."

"The gladsome light of jurisprudence."

"According to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not."

"Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare."

"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."

"When the judges shall be obliged to go armed, it will be time for the courts to be closed."

"Our human laws are but the copies, more or less imperfect, of the eternal laws, so far as we can read them."

"Just laws are no restraint upon the freedom of the good, for the good man desires nothing which a just law will interfere with."

"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."

"Es erben sich Gesetz und Rechte Wie eine ew'ge Krankheit fort."

"A cloud of witnesses."

"Quid leges sine moribus Vanæ proficiunt?"

"To the law and to the testimony."

"The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public."