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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.5 quotes
The truth is, that the law is always approaching, and never reaching, consistency. It is forever adopting new principles from life at one end, and it always retains old ones from history at the other, which have not yet been absorbed or sloughed off. It will become entirely consistent only when it ceases to grow. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. · 1880It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV. It is still more revolting if the grounds upon which it was laid down have vanished long since, and the rule simply persists from blind imitation of the past. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. · 1897The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. · 1880The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. · 1880The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic... The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. · 1919Edmund Burke4 quotes
Laws, like houses, lean on one another. — Edmund Burke · 1760There is but one law for all, namely, that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity, — the Law of Nature and of Nations. — Edmund Burke · 1794The law touches us but here and there, and now and then. Manners are what vex or soothe, corrupt or purify, exalt or debase, barbarize or refine us, by a constant, steady, uniform, insensible operation, like that of the air we breathe in. — Edmund Burke · 1796Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny. — Edmund Burke · 1780Abraham Lincoln3 quotes
The intention of the lawgiver is the law. — Abraham Lincoln · 1861Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. Point out to them how the nominal winner is often a real loser—in fees, expenses, and waste of time. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough. — Abraham Lincoln · 1850Let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father and to tear the character of his own and his children's liberty. — Abraham Lincoln · 1838Edward Coke3 quotes
They cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed, nor excommunicate, for they have no souls. — Edward Coke · 1658Reason is the life of the law, nay the common law itself is nothing else but reason. — Edward Coke · 1628How long soever it hath continued, if it be against reason, it is of no force in law. — Edward Coke · 1628Mark Twain3 quotes
Necessity knows no law. — Mark Twain · 1869Let me make the superstitions of a nation and I care not who makes its laws or its songs either. — Mark Twain · 1897Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment. — Mark Twain · 1906Anacharsis2 quotes
Written laws are like spiders' webs; they will catch, it is true, the weak and poor, but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful. — AnacharsisAnacharsis laughed at Solon for imagining the dishonesty and covetousness of his countrymen could be restrained by written laws, which were like spiders' webs, and would catch, it is true, the weak and poor, but easily be broken by the mighty and rich. — Anacharsis · 119Elizabeth Fry2 quotes
Does capital punishment tend to the security of the people? By no means. It hardens the hearts of men, and makes the loss of life appear light to them; and it renders life insecure, inasmuch as the law holds out that property is of greater value than life. — Elizabeth Fry · 1848Punishment is not for revenge, but to lessen crime and reform the criminal. — Elizabeth Fry · 1848George Savile, Lord Halifax2 quotes
Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen. — George Savile, Lord Halifax · 1750Wherever a knave is not punished, an honest man is laughed at. — George Savile, Lord Halifax · 1750Martin Luther King, Jr.2 quotes
There are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. — Martin Luther King, Jr. · 1963Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless. — Martin Luther King, Jr. · 1962A.P. Herbert1 quote
The Common Law of England has been laboriously built about a mythical figure-the figure of "The Reasonable Man.".... He is an ideal, a standard, the embodiment of all those qualities which we demand of the good citizen. — A.P. Herbert · 1935Albert Camus1 quote
Integrity has no need of rules. — Albert Camus · 1942Anatole France1 quote
The majestic equality of the law, which forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread. — Anatole France · 1894Aristotle1 quote
Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered. — Aristotle · 350 BCBenjamin Hoadly1 quote
Whoever hath an absolute authority to interpret any written, or spoken laws; it is He, who is truly the Law-giver to all intents and purposes, and not the Person who first wrote, or spoke them. — Benjamin Hoadly · 1717Carrie Chapman Catt1 quote
No written law has ever been more binding than unwritten custom supported by popular opinion. — Carrie Chapman Catt · 1900Catharine MacKinnon1 quote
The law sees and treats women the way men see and treat women. — Catharine MacKinnon · 1983Charles Dickens1 quote
The one great principle of the English law is to make business for itself. — Charles Dickens · 1853Charles Macklin1 quote
The law is a sort of hocus-pocus science. — Charles Macklin · 1759Christopher North1 quote
Laws were made to be broken. — Christopher North · 1830Cicero1 quote
Laws are silent in time of war. — Cicero · 52 BCDaniel Webster1 quote
Whatever government is not a government of laws, is a despotism, let it be called what it may. — Daniel Webster · 1835Denis Diderot1 quote
There are two sorts of laws, those of absolute equity and universality, and the bizarre ones which owe their autonomy only to blindness or to the force of circumstance. The latter merely cover the man who is breaking them with a passing disgrace, which time then transfers to the judges and the nations, on whom it remains forever. — Denis Diderot · 1805Diogenes Laertius1 quote
There is a written and an unwritten law. The one by which we regulate our constitutions in our cities is the written law; that which arises from custom is the unwritten law. — Diogenes Laertius · 240Edward Gibbon1 quote
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind. — Edward Gibbon · 1776Fred Rodell1 quote
The Law is the killy-loo bird of the sciences. The killy-loo, of course, was the bird that insisted on flying backward because it didn't care where it was going but was mightily interested in where it had been... Only The Law, inexorably devoted to all its most ancient principles and precedents, makes a vice of innovation and a virtue of hoariness. — Fred Rodell · 1939Gordon Hewart1 quote
A long line of cases shows that it is not merely of some importance, but is of fundamental importance that justice should not only be done, but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done. — Gordon Hewart · 1924Hannah More1 quote
For you'll ne'er mend your fortunes, nor help the just cause,
By breaking of windows, or breaking of laws. — Hannah More · 1817Heraclitus1 quote
The people must fight in defense of the law as they would for their city wall. — HeraclitusHerbert Hoover1 quote
The worst evil of disregard for some law is that it destroys respect for all law. — Herbert Hoover · 1929Hilary Mantel1 quote
Statements, indictments, bills are circulated, shuffled between judges, prosecutors, the Attorney General, the Lord Chancellor’s office; each step in the process clear, logical, and designed to create corpses by due process of law. — Hilary Mantel · 2012