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Quotes about laws

126 quotes from 83 people

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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
They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man’s goods from thieves, but honesty has no defence against superior cunning
Jonathan Swift1667–1745Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput, Chapter VIIn context
- Truth & Lies
The judge is condemned when the guilty is absolved.
PSPublilius Syrus101–101 BCSentences, Maxim 407
- Justice
In a state where corruption abounds, laws must be very numerous.
Tacitus55–120
The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the government.
Tacitus55–120Annals (117), Book III, 27
- Government
What is today supported by precedents will hereafter become a precedent.
Tacitus55–120Annals (117), Book XI, 24
- Change
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
Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.
Henry David Thoreau1817–1862Civil Disobedience (1849)In context
- Justice
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
Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?
Henry David Thoreau1817–1862Civil Disobedience (1849)In context
- Justice
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
Laws are always unstable unless they are founded on the manners of a nation; and manners are the only durable and resisting power in a people.
Alexis de Tocqueville1805–1859Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter XVI.