Legal System Quotes

• It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.

  Earl Warren

  Law, Justice, Alive

  Earl Warren (1955). “The Law and the Future”

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• When plunder becomes a way of life, men create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Life, Money, Men

  "Economic Sophisms". Book by Frédéric Bastiat, Second series, 1848.

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• 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

  Life, Law, Civilization

  Hannah Arendt (1972). “Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; Thoughts on Politics and Revolution”, p.89, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• Equal justice under law is not merely a caption on the facade of the Supreme Court building, it is perhaps the most inspiring ideal of our society. It is one of the ends for which our entire legal system exists...it is fundamental that justice should be the same, in substance and availability, without regard to economic status.

  Lewis F. Powell, Jr.

  Inspirational, Equality, Availability

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• There are two ways to aquire the niceties of life:
  1) To produce them or
  2) To plunder them.
  When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time, a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.

  Paul Valery

  Men, Two, Together

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• The legal system is often a mystery, and we, its priests, preside over rituals baffling to everyday citizens.

  Henry Miller

  Everyday, Citizens, Mystery

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• The right to a trial is a core principle of the American legal system. Depriving Americans of these essential liberties undermines the Constitution while doing nothing to strengthen our national security.

  John Garamendi

  Liberty, Principles, Essentials

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• Democracy is not possible without effectively working legal system.

  Vladimir Putin

  Democracy

  "Russian President Putin on 'FOX News Sunday'". "FOX News Sunday" with Chris Wallace, www.foxnews.com. September 18, 2005.

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• Do things that make you happy within the confines of the legal system.

  Ellen DeGeneres

  Law, Lawyer, Make You Happy

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• But if we get to the point where more people do not believe in a God than who do believe in God, we will have a hollow legal system - we will have something without heart.

  Lee Greenwood

  Believe, Heart, People

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• Things happened there that I don't think are the finest hours for anybody, whether it was a journalist, the legal system or, in that case of the political system, who would say that was an example of when Washington worked best.

  Rahm Emanuel

  Thinking, Political, Example

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• Torture is such a slippery slope; as soon as you allow a society or any legal system to do that, almost instantly you get a situation where people are being tortured for very trivial reasons.

  Iain Banks

  People, Slippery Slope, Reason

  "Iain Banks: Even at my age I still have something to prove". Interview With Maxton Walker, www.theguardian.com. September 7, 2009.

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• When I started law school I was shocked to learn that our legal system traditionally had the man as the head and master of the family. As late as the '70s and '80s when we were fighting for the Equal Rights Amendment, states like Louisiana still had a head and master law.

  Patricia Ireland

  School, Fighting, Men

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• However, we do not lack anti-terrorist laws. I do not believe that the recent London bombs were the result of any deficiencies in our legal system.

  Kenneth Clarke

  Believe, Law, Bombs

  "Full text: Kenneth Clarke's speech", www.theguardian.com. August 31, 2005.

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• The Republican majority will stop at nothing to prevent access to the legal system for those who are hurt.

  Joe Baca

  Hurt, Majority, Republican

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• The work is challenging, interesting and an important part of our legal system.

  David Minge

  Interesting, Challenges, Important

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• I've led a school whose faculty and students examine and discuss and debate every aspect of our law and legal system. And what I've learned most is that no one has a monopoly on truth or wisdom. I've learned that we make progress by listening to each other, across every apparent political or ideological divide.

  Elena Kagan

  Wisdom, Truth, School

  Opening Statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee at the USSC Justice Confirmation Hearings, delivered 28 June 2010

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• We've got fifty people at Gitmo that are too dangerous to be let go that will never go through a normal criminal trial. Let's create a new legal system, so they'll have their day in court.

  Lindsey Graham

  Letting Go, People, Criminals

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• It is important to recognize the limited ability of the legal system to prescribe and enforce the quality of social arrangements.

  Hillary Clinton

  Law, Important, Quality

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• Legal ethics is a misnomer ... lawyers conducting themselves legally are not necessarily conducting themselves morally ."...and ..."The zero sum nature of the legal system, combined with the universal adoption of zealotry as the marching orders of practioners and prosecutors, transforms the moral mission of the legal system from one of truth-seeking, storytelling, and justice, to one of fabrication, distortion, and manipulation in pursuit of victory. These victories, however, make us all losers.

  Thane Rosenbaum

  Zero, Order, Justice

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• They don't produce anything. All they do is guide you through the labyrinth of the legal system that they created - and they keep changing it just in case you start to catch on.

  Ian Shoales

  Labyrinth, Ethics, Guides

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• The legal system works really well, if you communicate a certain way. But if you don't, it all goes to Hell in a handbasket really quickly.

  Jodi Picoult

  Way, Hell, Certain

  Simon & Schuster Interview, www.simonandschuster.com.

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• Let's create a legal system that can work.

  Sam Brownback

  Interview with Tom Bevan, www.realclearpolitics.com. March 12, 2007.

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• No wonder lawyers, who control the legal system, have fought so hard, and with great success, against "no fault" insurance. No fault, no lawsuits. No lawsuits, no lunch.

  Andrew Tobias

  Lunch, Faults, Lawyer

  "The Invisible Bankers, Everything The Insurance Industry Never Wanted You To Know". Book by Andrew Tobias, 1982.

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• Behaviorism proposes to study human behavior according to the methods developed by animal and infant psychology. It seeks to investigate reflexes and instincts, automatisms and unconscious reactions. But it has told us nothing about the reflexes that have built cathedrals, railroads, and fortresses, the instincts that have produced philosophies, poems, and legal systems, the automatisms that have resulted in the growth and decline of empires, the unconscious reactions that are splitting atoms.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Philosophy, Animal, Psychology

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