quotations about law
When it comes to true lies and misdemeanors, the law now depends on who you are, not what you do.
CURTICE MANG
"Satire: Nogales, no English: Where the law is an ass", Communities Digital News, March 29, 2016
Many laws as certainly make bad men, as bad men make many laws.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
If you make 10,000 regulations you destroy all respect for the law.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
speech in House of Commons, Feb. 3, 1949
Laws are generally found to be nets of such a texture as the little creep through, the great break through, and the middle size are alone entangled in.
WILLIAM SHENSTONE
Essays on Men and Manners
Laws are but words. Spoken, they may be ineffectual as the air that bears them. Even when written, they are of no effect unless enacted by people who understand them and take them seriously.
ALAN KEYES
"A government of laws and not of elitist student bodies", Renew America, April 4, 2016
Now, it is of great moment that well-drawn laws should themselves define all the points they possibly can and leave as few as may be to the decision of the judges; and for this several reasons. First, to find one man, or a few men, who are sensible persons and capable of legislating and administering justice is easier than to find a large number. Next, laws are made after long consideration, whereas decisions in the courts are given at short notice, which makes it hard for those who try the case to satisfy the claims of justice and expediency.
ARISTOTLE
Rhetoric
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
The law hath so many contradictions and varyings from itself, that the law may not improperly be called a law-breaker. It is become too changeable a thing to be defined: it is made little less a Mystery than the Gospel. The clergy and the lawyers, like the Freemasons, may be supposed to take an oath not to tell the secret.
GEORGE SAVILE
"Of Laws", A Character of King Charles the Second: and Political, Moral and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections
The people's awe and innate fear will hold injustice back by day, by night, so long as the people leave the laws intact, just as they are: muddy the cleanest spring, and all you'll have to drink is muddy water.
AESCHYLUS
Eumenides
The universal and absolute law is that natural justice which cannot be written down, but which appeals to the hearts of all.
VICTOR COUSIN
attributed, Day's Collacon
Laws are a nation's egotism.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
There is no intrinsic virtue to law and order unless "law" is equated with justice and "order" with the discipline of a people satisfied that justice has been done.
AUNG SAN SUU KYI
In Quest of Democracy
Anytime you live in a society supposedly based upon law and it doesn't enforce its own laws because the color of a man's skin happens to be wrong, then I say those people are justified to resort to any means necessary to bring about justice when the government can't give them justice.
MALCOLM X
Oxford Union Debate, Dec. 3, 1964
The one great principle of the English law is, to make business for itself.
CHARLES DICKENS
Bleak House
The wisdom of a law-maker consisteth not only in a platform of justice, but in the application thereof; taking into consideration by what means laws may be made certain.
FRANCIS BACON
The Advancement of Learning