Jeremy Bentham on laws

The day may come when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withholden from them but by the hand of tyranny.

The question is not Can they reason?, nor Can they talk?, but Can they suffer?

Priestley was the first (unless it was Beccaria) who taught my lips to pronounce this sacred truth — that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.

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