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Topics/Government

Quotes about laws

126 quotes from 83 people

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You have to be prepared for the consequences. I honestly do not know if civil disobedience has any effect on the government. I can promise you it has a great effect on the person who chooses to do it.
Martin Sheenborn 1940Progressive magazine interview (2003)
- Government
Throwing out preclearance when it has worked and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg1933–2020Dissenting, Shelby County v. Holder (2013)
- Voting
When you go to prison they forget it’s your Constitution, too.
Jimmy Hoffa1913–1975Hoffa The Real Story (1975), Chapter 12, Convict, p. 187
- Justice
I grew up here in Washington, D.C., back during the quaint, old-fashioned “Rule of Law” period.
Julia Louis-Dreyfusborn 1961Mark Twain Prize Acceptance Speech (2018)
- Clever Jabs
My faith in the Constitution is whole; it is complete; it is total. I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.
Barbara Jordan1936–1996Statement to the House Judiciary Committee on the impeachment of Richard Nixon (25 July 1974)
- Government
“Rule Forty-two. All persons more than a mile high to leave the court.”
Lewis Carroll1832–1898Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Chapter XIIIn context
- Comedy
“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, “the law is a ass⁠—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience⁠—by experience.”
Charles Dickens1812–1870Oliver Twist (1838), Chapter LIIn context
- Clever Jabs
The one great principle of the English law is to make business for itself.
Charles Dickens1812–1870Bleak House (1853), Chapter XXXIXIn context
- Clever Jabs
You have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Part II: A Voyage to Brobdingnag, Chapter VIIn context
- Clever Jabs
- Politics
There was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving, by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Part IV: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms, Chapter VIn context
- Clever Jabs
- Truth & Lies
It is a maxim among these lawyers that whatever has been done before, may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice, and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities to justify the most iniquitous opinions; and the judges never fail of directing accordingly.
Jonathan Swift1667–1745Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Part IV: A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms, Chapter VIn context
- Justice
The world is still deceiv’d with ornament.
In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
But, being season’d with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil?
William Shakespeare1564–1616The Merchant of Venice (c. 1597), Act III, Scene II, spoken by BassanioIn context
- Truth & Lies
The chief foundations of all states, new as well as old or composite, are good laws and good arms; and as there cannot be good laws where the state is not well armed, it follows that where they are well armed they have good laws.
Niccolò Machiavelli1469–1527The Prince (1532), Chapter XIIIn context
- Power
Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then?
Henry David Thoreau1817–1862Civil Disobedience (1849)In context
- Morality
It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right.
Henry David Thoreau1817–1862Civil Disobedience (1849)In context
- Morality