Law Quotes - Page 16

• Law; an ordinance of reason for the common good, made by him who has care of the community.

  Thomas Aquinas

  Community, Care, Common

  St Thomas Aquinas (2013). “Summa Theologica, Volume 2 (Part II, First Section)”, p.995, Cosimo, Inc.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• When you have no basis for an argument, abuse the plaintiff.

  Marcus Tullius Cicero

  Philosophical, Abuse, Opinion

  90 Copy quote

• ..the United States is subject to the scrutiny of a candid world ... what the United States does, for good or for ill, continues to be watched by the international community, in particular by organizations concerned with the advancement of the rule of law and respect for human dignity.

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg

  Respect, Organization, Community

  15 Copy quote

• A bird is an instrument working according to mathematical law, which instrument it is within the capacity of man to reproduce with all its movements, but not with a corresponding degree of strength, though it is deficient only in the power of maintaining equilibrium. We may therefore say that such an instrument constructed by man is lacking in nothing except the life of the bird, and this life must needs be supplied from that of man.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Life, Airplane, Science

  The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (translation by Edward MacCurdy)

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Law is nothing unless close behind it stands a warm, living public opinion.

  Wendell Phillips

  War, Public Opinion, Behinds

  Wendell Phillips (1864). “Speeches, Lectures, and Letters”, p.264

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Litigation: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Pigs, Machines, Sausage

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2450, Delphi Classics

  38 Copy quote

  Show source

• Everything in nature goes by law, and not by luck.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Nature, Science, Luck

  9 Copy quote

• Let us consider the reason of the case. For nothing is law that is not reason.

  John Powell

  Reason, Cases

  Coggs v. Bernard, 2 Lord Raymond Reports, p. 911

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• I prefer law to war under all circumstances.

  Benjamin B. Ferencz

  War, Circumstances

  "Crimes Against Humanity Benjamin Ferencz Interview". Interview with Katy Clark, ratical.org. September 19, 2001.

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• When the judges shall be obliged to go armed, it will be time for the courts to be closed.

  Stephen Johnson Field

  Judging, Court, Obliged

  "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, p. 430-34, 1922.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• To offend and judge are distinct offices, And of opposed natures.

  William Shakespeare

  Judging, Office, Judgment

  William Shakespeare, Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, Edward Capell, George Steevens (1821). “The Plays and Poems of William Shakspeare”, p.70

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• I want to live perfectly above the law, and make it my servant instead of my master.

  Brigham Young

  Want, Masters, Servant

  Brigham Young (1854). “Journal of Discourses”, p.364

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The convoluted wording of legalisms grew up around the necessity to hide from ourselves the violence we do to each other.

  Frank Herbert

  Violence, Grew Up, Legalism

  Frank Herbert (2008). “Dune Messiah”, p.148, Penguin

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Pay, pay anything rather than go to law.

  Isabella Beeton

  Pay

  Isabella Beeton, Nicola Humble (2008). “Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management: Abridged Edition”, p.562, Oxford University Press

  15 Copy quote

  Show source

• Laws ought to be fashioned unto the manners and conditions of the people whom they are meant to benefit, and not imposed upon them according to the simple rule of right.

  Edmund Spenser

  Simple, People, Benefits

  Edmund Spenser (1890). “Ireland Under Elizabeth and James the First”, London : G. Routledge

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• The gladsome light of jurisprudence.

  Edward Coke

  Light, Jurisprudence

  The First Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England epilogue (1628)

  65 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every object and purpose of justice is effectually answered, and every supposed inconvenience is effectually rebutted by the law as it stands.

  Bayley

  Justice, Purpose, Inconvenience

  8 Copy quote

• Law is mind without reason.

  Aristotle

  Mind, Reason

  16 Copy quote

• As a lawyer I am before and above all things for the supremacy of law.

  John Coleridge, 1st Baron Coleridge

  Lawyer, Supremacy, All Things

  The Queen v. Bishop of London, L. R. 23 Q. B. 452, 1889.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Laws that forbid the carrying of arms disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Gun, Strong Arms, Crime Books

  53 Copy quote

• The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.

  William Shakespeare

  Memorable, Measure For Measure

  1603 Angelo to Isabella. Measure for Measure, act 2, sc.2, l.92.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.

  Samuel Johnson

  Country, Prison, Authority

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1786). “Boswell's Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides, and Johnson's Diary of A Journey Into North Wales”, p.202

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Certain other societies may respect the rule of force--we respect the rule of law.

  John F. Kennedy

  May, Force, Certain

  Vanderbilt University 90th Anniversary Convocation Address, delivered 18 May 1963, Vanderbilt University Stadium, Nashville Tennessee

  19 Copy quote

  Show source

• Equality before the law in a true democracy is a matter of right. It cannot be a matter of charity or of favor or of grace or of discretion.

  Wiley Blount Rutledge

  Justice, Grace, Democracy

  13 Copy quote

• Laws, in their most general signification, are the necessary relations arising from the nature of things. In this sense all beings have their laws: the Deity His laws, the material world its laws, the intelligences superior to man their laws, the beasts their laws, man his laws.

  Baron de Montesquieu

  God, Nature, Science

  Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (2015). “The Spirit of Laws”, p.14, Library of Alexandria

  10 Copy quote

  Show source