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36 quotes
Group bySubjectSpeakerEraGenre
Topic·Rule of law✕clear
Classical antiquity3 quotes
Laws are silent in time of war. — Cicero · 52 BCOur constitution is named a democracy, because it is in the hands not of the few but of the many. But our laws secure equal justice for all in their private disputes, and our public opinion welcomes and honors talent in every branch of achievement, not for any sectional reason but on grounds of excellence alone. And as we give free play to all in our public life, so we care the same spirit into our daily relations with one another... Open and friendly in our private intercourse, in our public acts we keep strictly within the control of law. We acknowledge the restraint of authority, and to the laws, more especially to those which offer protection to the oppressed and those unwritten ordinances whose transgression brings admitted shame. — Pericles · 430 BCThe people must fight in defense of the law as they would for their city wall. — Heraclitus
Age of Enlightenment2 quotes
Where-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins. — John Locke · 1690Wherever a knave is not punished, an honest man is laughed at. — George Savile, Lord Halifax · 1750
American Revolutionary Period2 quotes
A government of laws, and not of men. — John Adams · 1775That inflexible and uniform adherence to the rights of the Constitution, and of individuals, which we perceive to be indispensable in the courts of justice, can certainly not be expected from judges who hold their offices by a temporary commission. — Alexander Hamilton · 1788
Middle Ages2 quotes
To no man will we sell, or deny, or delay, right or justice. — Magna Carta · 1215No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed, nor will we go upon him nor will we send upon him, except by the legal judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. — Magna Carta · 1215
Old Testament Era1 quote
In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes. — Judges 17:6 · 1385 BC