Law

"…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."

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

"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."

"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."

"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."

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

"The inflexibility of the laws, which prevents them from adapting themselves to circumstances, may, in certain cases, render them disastrous, and make them bring about, at a time of crisis, the ruin of the State."

"We must base our laws on faith, not reason."

"Things don't just happen in this world of arising and passing away. We don't live in some kind of crazy, accidental universe. Things happen according to certain laws, laws of nature. Laws such as the law of karma, which teaches us that as a certain seed gets planted, so will that fruit be."

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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."

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"We are for law; he dies."

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

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

"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."

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

"Laws are never as effective as habits."

"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."

"You have clearly proved that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator: that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied by those whose interest and abilities lies in perverting, confounding, and eluding them."

"Who ever knew an honest brute at law his neighbor prosecute?"

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

"Necessity knows no law except to conquer."

"Corruptissima re publica plurimae leges."

"Rebus cunctis inest quidam velut orbis."

"The more corrupt a society, the more numerous its laws."