quotations about law
Laws like to Cobwebs catch small Flies, Great ones break thro' before your eyes.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
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Poor Richard's Almanack, 1734
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Justice is immortal, eternal, and immutable, like God himself; and the development of law is only then a progress when it is directed towards those principles which, like him, are eternal; and whenever prejudice or error succeeds in establishing in customary law any doctrine contrary to eternal justice, it is one of the noblest duties, gentlemen ... to show that an unjust custom is a corrupt practice, an abuse; and by showing this, to originate that change, or rather development in the unwritten, customary law, which is necessary to make it protect justice, instead of opposing and violating it.
LOUIS KOSSUTH
Select Speeches
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Of course you got rights, the law's on your side, but sometimes the law takes a long time to kick in and so it gets put in the hands of us poor suckers on duty. You get my drift?
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Dance, Dance, Dance
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Notwithstanding, for the more public part of government, which is laws, I think good to note only one deficiency; which is, that all those which have written of laws have written either as philosophers or as lawyers, and none as statesmen.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning
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I call that law universal, which is conformable merely to dictates of nature; for there does exist naturally an universal sense of right and wrong, which, in a certain degree, all intuitively divine, even should no intercourse with each other, nor any compact have existed.
ARISTOTLE
Rhetoric
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Law hath dominion over all things, over universal mind and matter; For there are reciprocities of rights, which no creature can gainsay.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
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For he that is delighted by concord,
And who abideth in the Law,
Falleth not from Security.
GAUTAMA BUDDHA
Iti-Vuttaka
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The law itself is accused of iniquity, and impeached, like the orators of Athens when they have persuaded the assembly to pass unjust decrees.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
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Written laws are formulas in which we endeavor to express as concisely as possible that which, under such or such determined circumstances, natural justice demands.
VICTOR COUSIN
attributed, The Historical Wisdom of the Ages and Sages
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In written laws, men ... make a difference between the letter and the sentence of the law: And when by the letter is meant whatsoever can be gathered from the bare words, 'tis well distinguished. For the significance of almost all words, are either themselves, or in the metaphorical use of them, ambiguous, and may be drawn in argument to make many senses, but there is only one sense of the law.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
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Engaging with the law is fine in the short term, but true liberation from oppression will not come from the law. As history bears out, true liberation has always and will always come about in spite of the law, not with it.
JOHN WINSTEAD
"Law is too small to contain social justice", WKU Herald, March 23, 2016
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From real laws come real rights; but from imaginary laws, from laws of nature, fancied and invented by poets, rhetoricians, and dealers in moral and intellectual poisons, come imaginary rights, a bastard brood of monsters.
JEREMY BENTHAM
Anarchical Fallacies
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The law is a battery, which protects all that is behind it, but sweeps with destruction all that is outside.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
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The law is like Swiss cheese. The holes are the truth, and lawyers are like roaches crawling through the cheese. You can use the holes to get from one part of the cheese to another, but you can't eat the holes, you can only eat the cheese.
DON NIGRO
Tainted Justice
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When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw.
NELSON MANDELA
Long Walk to Freedom
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The law is more easily understood by few than many words. For all words are subject to ambiguity, and therefore multiplication of words in the body of the law is multiplication of ambiguity. Besides, it seems to imply (by too much diligence) that whosoever can evade the words is without the compass of the law.
THOMAS HOBBES
Leviathan
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We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in ignorance of the identity of the claimants and applied equally to all. Then it is a possession not only of the claimants but of the society, which may now base its actions upon a reasonable assumption of the law's treatment.
DAVID MAMET
The Secret Knowledge
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There never was a law yet made, I conceive, that hit the taste exactly of every man, or every part of the community; of course, if this be a reason for opposition, no law can be executed at all without force, and every man or set of men will in that case cut and carve for themselves; the consequences of which must be deprecated by all classes of men, who are friends to order, and to the peace and happiness of the country.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
letter to Major-General Daniel Morgan
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The problem with law is that it is blind. It is quite similar to the plight of a young blindfolded child trying to hit a piñata -- there are always chances of collateral damage. The blindfolded statue of Justice which is supposed to portray Her objectivity and therefore Her greatest strength also becomes Her greatest weakness. She is a victim to interpretative machinations and subjectivity.
SAMIR NAZARETH
"When law is blind", The Hindu, March 21, 2016
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If we look to the historical influences which have actually enacted human codes, and which have governed their administration, it is at first difficult to understand the sanctity which is thus attributed to the law and its ministers. And if, further, we examine the contents of human codes, and observe how far short they fall of enforcing, even within the limits that must bound all attempts at such enforcement, anything like an absolute morality, this difficulty is not diminished. Between law and equity there is, perhaps there must always be, a considerable interval. Between law and absolute morality there is at times patent contradiction. The undue protection of class interests, the neglect of interests of large classes; the legislation which consults, chiefly and above all else, the profit of the legislator, whether he be king, or noble, or popular assembly; the legislation which postpones moral to material interests, and which makes havoc of man's highest good in order to gratify his lower instincts, his passing caprice, his unreasoning passion -- all this and much else appears to forbid enthusiasm for human law.
HENRY PARRY LIDDON
Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford
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