Law quotes

Law

9.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.

9.3K quotes

Explore further

Browse quotes that often appear alongside law — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.

Men 68.6K quotes People 100.4K quotes Government 11.3K quotes Thinking 95.1K quotes Order 8.7K quotes Country 20.3K quotes

Quote collection

Law quotes (page 134 of 467)

Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.

Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Law

"Seen from a lower point of view, the Constitution, with all its faults, is very good; the law and the courts are very respectable;even this State and this American government are, in many respects, very admirable, and rare things, to be thankful for, such as a great many have described them; but seen from a point of view a little higher, they are what I have described them; seen from a higher still, and the highest, who shall say what they are, or that they are worth looking at or thinking of at all?"

Thinking Government Law
Read quote 3 likes
Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Law

"Is it not possible that an individual may be right and a government wrong? Are laws to be enforced simply because they were made? Or declared by any number of men to be good, if they are NOT good?"

Men Law Numbers
Read quote 3 likes
Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Law

"Sometimes we are clarified and calmed healthily, as we never were before in our lives, not by an opiate, but by some unconscious obedience to the all-just laws, so that we become like a still lake of purest crystal and without an effort our depths are revealed to ourselves. . . ."

Life Law Lakes
Read quote 3 likes
Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Law

"All the moral laws are readily translated into natural philosophy, for often we have only to restore the primitive meaning of thewords by which they are expressed, or to attend to their literal instead of their metaphorical sense. They are already supernatural philosophy."

Law Philosophy Philosophical
Read quote 3 likes
Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Law

"There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we may obey. We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, but a successful life knows no law."

Law Success Freedom
Read quote 3 likes
Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Law

"The same law that shapes the earth-star shapes the snow-star. As surely as the petals of a flower are fixed, each of these countless snow-stars comes whirling to earth...these glorious spangles, the sweeping of heaven's floor."

Law Stars Flower
Read quote 3 likes
Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Law

"I do not believe in lawyers, in that mode of attacking or defending a man, because you descend to meet the judge on his own ground, and, in cases of the highest importance, it is of no consequence whether a man breaks a human law or not. Let lawyers decide trivial cases."

Men Believe Law
Read quote 3 likes
Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Law

"Whoever can discern truth has received his commission from a higher source than the chiefest justice in the world who can discernonly law. He finds himself constituted judge of the judge. Strange that it should be necessary to state such simple truths!"

Law Simple Truth
Read quote 3 likes
Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Law

"How little do the most wonderful inventions of modern times detain us. They insult nature. Every machine, or particular application, seems a slight outrage against universal laws."

Law Nature Progress
Read quote 3 likes
Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Law

"I had often stood on the banks of the Concord, watching the lapse of the current, an emblem of all progress, following the same law with the system, with time, and all that is madeand at last I resolved to launch myself on its bosom and float whither it would bear me."

Law Progress Travel
Read quote 3 likes
Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Law

"Nearest to all things is that power which fashions their being. Next to us the grandest laws are constantly being executed. Next to us is not the workman whom we have hired, with whom we love so well to talk, but the workman whose work we are."

Law Fashion Power
Read quote 3 likes
Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Law

"The improvements of ages have had but little influence on the essential laws of man's existence: as our skeletons, probably, are not to be distinguished from those of our ancestors."

Men Law Skeletons
Read quote 3 likes
Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Law

"I have not read far in the statutes of this Commonwealth. It is not profitable reading. They do not always say what is true; and they do not always mean what they say."

Mean Law Reading
Read quote 3 likes
Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Law

"I wish my countrymen to consider that whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can ever commit the leastact of injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it. A government which deliberately enacts injustice, and persists in it, will at length even become the laughing-stock of the world."

Government Law Justice
Read quote 3 likes
Henry David Thoreau Writer, Philosopher
Law

"If however the law is so promulgated that it of necessity makes you an agent of injustices against another, then I say to you ... break the law."

Law Agents Injustice
Read quote 3 likes