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Quotes about laws

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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
When you break the big laws, you do not get freedom; you do not even get anarchy. You get the small laws.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936
Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.
Benjamin Franklin1706–1790Poor Richard’s Almanack
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.
Edmund Burke1729–1797Speech at Bristol Previous to the Election (6 September 1780), quoted in The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II (1855), p. 148
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
H. L. Mencken1880–1956
- Freedom
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745A Tritical Essay upon the Faculties of the Mind (1707)
When the president does it that means that it is not illegal.
Richard Nixon1913–1994Interview with David Frost (May 19, 1977); printed in The New York Times (May 20, 1977), p. A16
- Presidency
A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
H. L. Mencken1880–1956A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
There is hardly a political question in the United States which does not sooner or later turn into a judicial one.
Alexis de Tocqueville1805–1859Democracy in America, ed. J. P. Mayer, trans. George Lawrence, vol. 1, part 2, chapter 8, p. 270 (1969). Originally published in 1835–1840.
- America
In a state where corruption abounds, laws must be very numerous.
Tacitus55–120
Let the welfare of the people be the ultimate law.
Cicero107–43 BCDe Legibus (On the Laws) (c. 40s BC), Book III, section 3
- Government
The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free.
Henry David Thoreau1817–1862“Slavery in Massachusetts” (1854)
- Freedom
We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.
Ronald Reagan1911–2004Speech at the Republican National Convention, Platform Committee Meeting, Miami, Florida” (31 July 1968)
- Responsibility