"statutory regulations, legislative enactments, constitutional provisions, are invasive. They never yet induced man to do anything he could and would not do by virtue of his intellect or temperament, nor prevented anything that man was impelled to do by the same dictates."
Law quotes
Law
9.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Topics related to Law
Browse quotes that often appear alongside law — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Law quotes (page 104 of 467)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"Anarchism...stands for direct action, the open defiance of, and resistance to, all laws and restrictions, economic, social, and moral."
"The average mind is slow in grasping a truth, but when the most thoroughly organized, centralized institution, maintained at an excessive national expense, has proven a complete social failure, the dullest must begin to question its right to exist. The time is past when we can be content with our social fabric merely because it is "ordained by divine right," or by the majesty of the law."
"The power that keeps cities of men together Is noble preservation of law."
"People will always want intimacy with one chosen person and you cannot have intimacy without privacy, which is why couples draw circles of privacy around themselves. They demand that family, neighbors and the law respect their union, and that is why we have marriage."
"Modern marriage is first and foremost a romantic and private union, but the tax laws and inheritance laws and religious implications that still surround this institution indicate that marriage has evolved without casting away its earlier purposes or assumptions. It's like we just keep building on this thing, piling new advancements on the old model."
"Alaska's chief attractions are: (a) its small and insignificant human population, thanks to the miserable climate; and (b) its large and magnificent wildlife population, thanks to (a). Both of these attractions are being rapidly diminished, however, by (c) the Law of Growth and Space-Age Sleaze."
"We do not feel as if we were producing the dreams, it is rather as if the dreams came to us. They are not subject to our control but obey their own laws."
"The evidence, so far at least and laws of Nature aside, does not require a Designer. Maybe there is one hiding, maddeningly unwilling to be revealed."
"We live in an in-between universe where things change all right...but according to patterns, rules, or as we call them, laws of nature."
"To hinder, besides, the farmer from selling his goods at all times to the best market, is evidently to sacrifice the ordinary laws of justice to an idea of public utility, to a sort of reasons of state; an act of legislative authority which ought to be exercised only, which can be pardoned only in cases of the most urgent necessity."
"Proverbs were anterior to boots, and formed the wisdom of the vulgar, and in the earliest ages were the unwritten laws of morality."
"In all church discussions we are apt to forget the second Testament is avowedly only a supplement. Jesus came to complete the law and the prophets. Christianity is completed Judaism, or it is nothing. Christianity is incomprehensible without Judaism, as Judaism is incomplete without Christianity."
"Law officials put their lives on the line every single day for us, and I think we also owe them a degree of respect."
"I came away with the idea that respect is really the solution. We need to teach young people to respect authority - particularly, respect the law."
"I was told, continued Egremont, that an impassable gulf divided the Rich from the Poor; I was told that the Privileged and the People formed Two Nations, governed by different laws, influenced by different manners, with no thoughts or sympathies in common; with an innate inability of mutual comprehension."
"London owes everything to its press: it owes as much to its press as it does to its being the seat of government and the law."
"Laws without morals are in vain."
"Lawyers, Preachers, and Tomtits Eggs, there are more of them hatch'd than come to perfection."
"an enormous proportion of property vested in a few individuals is dangerous to the rights, and destructive of the common happiness of mankind, and, therefore, every free state hath a right by its laws to discourage the possession of such property."