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Quotes about laws

126 quotes from 83 people

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In addition to the teaching of truths the Law aims at the removal of injustice from mankind.
Maimonides1138–1204Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.32
- Justice
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
A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.
H. L. Mencken1880–1956A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
Lawyer — One who protects us against robbers by taking away the temptation.
H. L. Mencken1880–1956A Mencken Chrestomathy (1949)
- Clever Jabs
Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner.
H. L. Mencken1880–1956The American Mercury (May 1930)
- Government
Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.
John Milton1608–1674Tetrachordon (1644–1645)
- Virtue
Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.
Montesquieu1689–1755The Spirit of the Laws (1748), Book XXIX: Of the Manner of Composing Laws, Chapter 16: Things to be Observed in the Composing of Laws
No tyranny is more cruel than the one practiced in the shadow of the laws and under color of justice — when, so to speak, one proceeds to drown the unfortunate on the very plank by which they had saved themselves.
Montesquieu1689–1755Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and their Decline (1734), p. 89
- Justice
They have no lawyers among them, for they consider them as a sort of people whose profession it is to disguise matters and to wrest the laws, and, therefore, they think it is much better that every man should plead his own cause
Thomas More1478–1535Utopia (1516), Book II (3 of 4)In context
- Clever Jabs
Rewriting unjust laws is a basic human right and fundamental obligation.
Huey P. Newton1942–1989“In Defense of Self-defense” I (June 20, 1967)
- Justice
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
Mandela demonstrated that action and ideas are not enough. No matter how right, they must be chiseled into law and institutions.
Barack Obamaborn 1961Eulogy of Nelson Mandela (December 2013)
- Ideas
In America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other.
Thomas Paine1737–1809Common Sense (1776), Part 2In context
- America
- Freedom
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
Let us consider the reason of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason.
JPJohn Powell1645–1713Coggs vs. Bernard, Lord Raymond, 911, reported in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)