Higher Law Quotes

• But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it to the same noble purposes.

  William H. Seward

  Law, Purpose, Noble

  William H. Seward's speech at the United States Senate, March 11, 1850.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Who would give a law to lovers? Love is unto itself a higher law.

  Boethius

  Love, Valentines Day, Law

  39 Copy quote

• There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil.

  Walter Lippmann

  Law, Devil, Journalism

  Walter Lippmann (1995). “Liberty and the News”, p.15, Transaction Publishers

  32 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a higher law than the Constitution.

  William H. Seward

  Law, Constitution, Black Power

  Speech in Senate during debate on Compromise of 1850, 11 Mar. 1850

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a higher law than the law of government. That's the law of conscience.

  Stokely Carmichael

  Government, Law, Political

  231 Copy quote

• It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Love, Inspirational, Acceptance

  1962 Speech at Cornell College, Mt Vernon, Iowa. Reported in the Wall Street Journal, 13 Nov.

  129 Copy quote

  Show source

• What separates us from the animals, what separates us from the chaos, is our ability to mourn people we’ve never met.

  David Levithan

  Animal, People, September 11

  David Levithan (2009). “Love Is the Higher Law”, p.77, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• This, I think, is how people survive: Even when horrible things have been done to us, we can still find gratitude in one another.

  David Levithan

  Gratitude, Thinking, People

  David Levithan (2009). “Love Is the Higher Law”, p.76, Knopf Books for Young Readers

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• Will mankind never learn that policy is not morality,--that it never secures any moral right, but considers merely what is expedient? chooses the available candidate,--who is invariably the devil,--and what right have his constituents to be surprised, because the devil does not behave like an angel of light? What is wanted is men, not of policy, but of probity,--who recognize a higher law than the Constitution, or the decision of the majority.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Angel, Men, Light

  Henry David Thoreau (2000). “Walden and Other Writings: (A Modern Library E-Book)”, p.718, Modern Library

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• What is wanted is men of principle, who recognize a higher law than the decision of the majority. The marines and the militia whose bodies were used lately were not men of sense nor of principle; in a high moral sense they were not men at all.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Responsibility, Marine, Men

  Henry David Thoreau, David Gross (2007). “The Price of Freedom: Political Philosophy from Thoreau's Journals”, p.129, David M Gross

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The only safe and honorable course for a self-respecting man is to do what I have decided to do, that is, to submit without protest to the penalty of disobedience ... not for want of respect for lawful authority, but in obedience to the higher law of our being, the voice of conscience.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Men, Self, Law

  Mahatma Gandhi (1923). “Letters on Indian Affairs”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• There is a higher law affecting our relation to pines as well as to men. A pine cut down, a dead pine, is no more a pine than a dead human carcass is a man.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Nature, Cutting, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “The Maine Woods: The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, Volume III (of 20)”, p.71, Trajectory Inc

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They can only force me who obey a higher law than I.... I do not hear of men being forced to live this way or that by masses of men. What sort of life were that to live?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Fashion, Power, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Civil Disobedience: Resistance to Civil Government”, p.26, The Floating Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Since natural law was thought to be accessible to the ordinary man, the theory invited each juror to inquire for himself whether a particular rule of law was consonant with principles of higher law. This view is reflected in John Adams' statement that it would be an 'absurdity' for jurors to be required to accept the judge's view of the law, 'against their own opinion, judgment, and conscience.'

  John Adams

  Men, Views, Law

  4 Copy quote

• But the creative person is subject to a different, higher law than mere national law. Whoever has to create a work, whoever has tobring about a discovery or deed which will further the cause of all of humanity, no longer has his home in his native land but rather in his work.

  Stefan Zweig

  Home, Creativity, Discovery

  7 Copy quote

• I have found that life persists in the midst of destruction and, therefore, there must be a higher law than that of destruction. Only under that law would a well-ordered society be intelligible and life worth living.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Law, Destruction, Midst

  Mahatma Gandhi (2005). “All Men Are Brothers”, p.82, A&C Black

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• True works of art are a manifestation of the higher laws of nature.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Art, Law, Manifestation

  4 Copy quote

• The true Christians are the true citizens, lofty of purpose, resolute in endeavor, ready for a hero's deeds, but never looking down on their task because it is cast in the day of small things; scornful of baseness, awake to their own duties as well as to their rights, following the higher law with reverence, and in this world doing all that in their power lies, so that when death comes they may feel that humanity is in some degree better because they lived.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Christian, Lying, Hero

  8 Copy quote

• Nonviolence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute. The spirit lies dormant in the brute, and he knows no law but that of physical might. The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher laws - to the strength of the spirit.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Peace, Lying, Men

  "The Doctrine Of The Sword". Young India, www.mkgandhi.org. August 11, 1920.

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• Stop trying, stop struggling; begin to be calm, to trust in the higher laws of life, even though you do not see them; they are still there.

  Ernest Holmes

  Struggle, Law, Trying

  Ernest Holmes (2007). “Creative Mind”, p.31, Lulu.com

  83 Copy quote

  Show source

• A little consideration of what takes place around us every day would show us that a higher law than that of our will regulates events; that our painful labors are unnecessary and fruitless; that only in our easy, simple, spontaneous action are we strong . . . . Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right, and a perfect contentment.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Strong, Powerful, Simple

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1983). “Essays and Lectures”, p.309, Library of America

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The dignity of man requires obedience to a higher law, to the strength of the spirit.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Self Esteem, Men, Law

  Mahatma Gandhi (1980). “All Men are Brothers: Autobiographical Reflections”, p.95, A&C Black

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• If all power is in the people, if there is no higher law than their will, and if by counting their votes, their will may be ascertained - then the people may entrust all their power to anyone, and the power of the pretender and the usurper is then legitimate. It is not to be challenged since it came originally from the sovereign people.

  Walter Lippmann

  Power, Law, People

  Walter Lippmann, Clinton Rossiter, James Lare (1982). “The Essential Lippmann: A Political Philosophy for Liberal Democracy”, p.5, Harvard University Press

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Going around this country, I have found a great hunger in America for spiritual revival; for a belief that law must be based on a higher law; for a return to traditions and values that we once had. Our government, in its most sacred documents - the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and all - speak of man being created, of a Creator; that we're a nation under God.

  Ronald Reagan

  Spiritual, Country, Men

  11 Copy quote

• Goddammit. Yeah, I have. First, there's a huge difference between being arrested and being guilty. Second, see, the law changes and I don't. How I stand vis-à-vis the law at any given moment depends on the law. The law can change from state to state, from nation to nation, from city to city. I guess I have to go by a higher law. How's that? Yeah, I consider myself a road man for the lords of karma.

  Hunter S. Thompson

  Karma, Men, Law

  Interview with John Glassie, www.salon.com. February 4, 2003.

  10 Copy quote

  Show source