When the state is most corrupt, then the laws are most multiplied.
—Tacitus (56–117) Roman Orator, Historian
When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken.
—Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81) British Head of State
No people were ever better than their laws, though many have been worse.
—J. B. Priestley (1894–1984) English Novelist, Playwright, Critic
We should have learnt by now that laws and court decisions can only point the way. They can establish criteria of right and wrong. And they can provide a basis for rooting out the evils of bigotry and racism. But they cannot wipe away centuries of oppression and injustice—however much we might desire it.
—Hubert Humphrey (1911–78) American Head of State, Politician
The magistrates are the ministers for the laws, the judges their interpreters, the rest of us are servants of the law, that we all may be free.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
All public interest legislation (and any distribution of money taken by force from some men for the unearned benefit of others) comes down ultimately to the grant of an undefined undefinable, non-objective, arbitrary power to some government officials. The worst aspect of it is not that such a power can be used dishonestly, but that it cannot be used honestly. The wisest man in the world, with the purest integrity, cannot find a criterion for the just, equitable, rational application of an unjust, inequitable, irrational principle.
—Ayn Rand (1905–82) Russian-born American Novelist, Philosopher
A countryman between two lawyers is like a fish between two cats.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
We should never create by law what can be accomplished by morality.
—Montesquieu (1689–1755) French Political Philosopher, Jurist
A lawyer is a gentlemen that rescues your estate from your enemies and then keeps it to himself.
—Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868) Scottish Jurist, Politician
Laws gain their authority from actual possession and custom: it is perilous to go back to their origins; laws, like our rivers, get greater and nobler as they roll along: follow them back upstream to their sources and all you find is a tiny spring, hardly recognizable; as time goes by it swells with pride and grows in strength.
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–92) French Essayist
The law is reason, free from passion.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
A country is considered the more civilized the more wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak or a powerful one too powerful.
—Primo Levi (1919–87) Italian Novelist, Poet, Chemist
I want to live perfectly above the law, and make it my servant instead of my master.
—Brigham Young (1801–77) American Mormon Leader
A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.
—Unknown
A jury too often has at least one member more ready to hang the panel than to hang the traitor.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
Laws are silent in the midst of arms.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
Even an attorney of moderate talent can postpone doomsday year after year, for the system of appeals that pervades American jurisprudence amounts to a legalistic wheel of fortune, a game of chance, somewhat fixed in the favor of the criminal, that the participants play interminably.
—Truman Capote (1924–84) American Novelist
We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don’t know anything and can’t read.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principals of fear or reason, but from passion.
—Montesquieu (1689–1755) French Political Philosopher, Jurist
A good, contented, well-breakfasted juryman is a capital thing to get hold of. Discontented jurymen always find for the plaintiff.
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
There is one evident, indubitable manifestation of the Divinity, and that is the laws of right which are made known to the world through Revelation.
—Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian Novelist
As the law dissolves all contracts which are without a valuable consideration, so a valuable consideration often dissolves the law.
—Henry Fielding (1707–54) English Novelist, Dramatist
To embarrass justice by a multiplicity of laws, or to hazard it by confidence in judges, are the opposite rocks on which all civil institutions have been wrecked, and between which legislative wisdom has never yet found an open passage.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
A judge is a law student who grades his own papers.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
The people’s safety is the law of God.
—James Otis Jr. (1725–83) American Lawyer, Patriot
All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures should not be slain nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away. This is the pure unchangeable law.
—Buddhist Teaching
Laws are the very bulwarks of liberty; they define every man’s rights, and defend the individual liberties of all men.
—Josiah Gilbert Holland (1819–81) American Editor, Novelist
Of all the parts of a law, the most effectual is the vindicatory; for it is but lost labor to say, “Do this, or avoid that,” unless we also declare, “This shall be the consequence of your non compliance.” The main strength and force of a law consists in the penalty annexed to it.
—William Blackstone (1723–80) English Judge, Jurist, Academic
No civilization would ever have been possible without a framework of stability, to provide the wherein for the flux of change. Foremost among the stabilizing factors, more enduring than customs, manners and traditions, are the legal systems that regulate our life in the world and our daily affairs with each other.
—Hannah Arendt (1906–75) German-American Philosopher, Political Theorist
Society cannot exist without law and order, and cannot advance except through vigorous innovators.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
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