Law quotes
9.3K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the trees, or the laws which pertain to them ... A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing. . ."
"The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they are, to speak in their own defence before they are condemned."
"I thank God that I've lived long enough to see what I have seen, and I pray that people will continue to do better. We are doing better, it may not seem so, but there was a time when people were lynched in the middle of the street and it was not against the law. We are doing better, but we have so much more to do."
"I went to law school because I understood what the power of the law is to make a difference in people's lives."
"The framers of the constitution employed words in their natural sense; and, where they are plain and clear, resort to collateral aids to interpretation is unnecessary, and cannot be indulged in to narrow or enlarge the text; but where there is ambiguity or doubt, or where two views may well be entertained, contemporaneous and subsequent practical construction is entitled to the greatest weight."
"It is the rule of rules, and the general law of all laws, that every person should observe those of the place where he is."
"The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived from nature, proceed from Custom."
"Necessity reconciles and brings men together; and this accidental connection afterward forms itself into laws."
"Laws are maintained in credit, not because they are essentially just, but because they are laws. It is the mystical foundation of their authority; they have none other."
"It is indeed the boundary of life, beyond which we are not to pass; which the law of nature has pitched for a limit not to be exceeded."
"The laws keep up their credit, not by being just, but because they are laws; 'tis the mystic foundation of their authority; they have no other, and it well answers their purpose. They are often made by fools; still oftener by men who, out of hatred to equality, fail in equity; but always by men, vain and irresolute authors."
"The way of the world is to make laws, but follow custom."
"Nature has with a Motherly Tenderness observed this, that the Action she has enjoyned us for our Necessity should be also pleasant to us, and invites us to them, not only by Reason, but also by Appetite: and tis Injustice to infringe her Laws."
"There is a huge gulf between the man who follows the conventions and laws of his country and the man who sets out to regiment them and to change them."
"The clatter of arms drowns out the voice of law."
"The sage says that all that is under heaven incurs the same law and the same fate."
"The laws of conscience, though we ascribe them to nature, actually come from custom."
"For men may prove and use their friends, as the poet expresses it, usque ad aras, meaning that a friend should not be required to act contrary to the law of God."
"I believe that "government", as we know it today, should pull out of most things except for law enforcement and justice, national defense and foreign policy, and let the private sector, a "Grameenized private sector", a social-consciousness-driven private sector, take over their other functions."
"In my own life, in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this country that has given me so much,” she said. “See, that’s why I left a job at a big law firm for a career in public service."
