Sydney Smith on laws

It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little.

Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing any one who comes between them.

You must not think me necessarily foolish because I am facetious, nor will I consider you necessarily wise because you are grave.

An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.

Martin Luther King Jr.1929–1968Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

Robert Frost1874–1963

Laws are partly formed for the sake of good men, in order to instruct them how they may live on friendly terms with one another, and partly for the sake of those who refuse to be instructed, whose spirit cannot be subdued, or softened, or hindered from plunging into evil.

Plato429–349 BC

• Morality