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Browse all 10,075 quotes or apply filters in different categories to narrow your search.
Abraham Lincoln2 quotes
To correct the evils, great and small, which spring from want of sympathy and from positive enmity, among strangers, as nations or as individuals, is one of the highest functions of civilization. — Abraham Lincoln · 1859Let 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 · 1838John Adams2 quotes
A government of laws, and not of men. — John Adams · 1775The law, in all vicissitudes of government, fluctuations of the passions, or flights of enthusiasm, will preserve a steady undeviating course; it will not bend to the uncertain wishes, imaginations, and wanton tempers of men... On the one hand it is inexorable to the cries and lamentations of the prisoners; on the other it is deaf, deaf as an adder to the clamours of the populace. — John Adams · 1770Mike Vargas2 quotes
A policeman's job is only easy in a police state. That's the whole point, Captain. Who's the boss, the cop or the law? — Mike Vargas · 1958It's a dirty job, enforcing the law; but, it's what we're supposed to be doing, isn't it? — Mike Vargas · 1958Thomas Paine2 quotes
But where says some is the king of America?...In America the law is king. — Thomas Paine · 1776He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. — Thomas Paine · 1795Alexander Hamilton1 quote
That 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 · 1788Anatole 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 · 1894Benjamin Harrison1 quote
A community where law is the rule of conduct and where courts, not mobs, execute its penalties is the only attractive field for business investments and honest labor. — Benjamin Harrison · 1889Calvin Coolidge1 quote
But there is another element, more important than all, without which there can not be the slightest hope of a permanent peace. That element lies in the heart of humanity. Unless the desire for peace be cherished there, unless this fundamental and only natural source of brotherly love be cultivated to its highest degree, all artificial efforts will be in vain. Peace will come when there is realization that only under a reign of law, based on righteousness and supported by the religious conviction of the brotherhood of man, can there be any hope of a complete and satisfying life. — Calvin Coolidge · 1925Cicero1 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 · 1835Felix Frankfurter1 quote
The history of liberty has largely been the history of observance of procedural safeguards. — Felix Frankfurter · 1943George Savile, Lord Halifax1 quote
Wherever a knave is not punished, an honest man is laughed at. — George Savile, Lord Halifax · 1750Gerald Ford1 quote
Our long national nightmare is over. Our Constitution works; our great republic is a government of laws and not of men. — Gerald Ford · 1974Hannah Arendt1 quote
To abolish the fences of laws between men—as tyranny does—means to take away man's liberties and destroy freedom as a living political reality; for the space between men as it is hedged in by laws, is the living space of freedom. — Hannah Arendt · 1951Heraclitus1 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 · 1929John Dryden1 quote
For who can be secure of private right,
If sovereign sway may be dissolved by might?
Nor is the people's judgement always true:
The most may err as grossly as the few. — John Dryden · 1681John Locke1 quote
Where-ever Law ends, Tyranny begins. — John Locke · 1690John Marshall1 quote
The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. — John Marshall · 1803John Paul Stevens1 quote
Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year's Presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the Nation's confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law. — John Paul Stevens · 2000Martin Howe1 quote
People gotta talk themselves into law and order before they do anything about it. Maybe because down deep they don't care. They just don't care. — Martin Howe · 1952Pericles1 quote
Our 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 BCRichard Posner1 quote
When urgent considerations of the public safety require compromise with the normal principles constraining law enforcement, the normal principles may have to bend. The Constitution is not a suicide pact. — Richard Posner · 1999Sandra Day O'Connor1 quote
We have long since made clear that a state of war is not a blank check for the President when it comes to the rights of the Nation's citizens. — Sandra Day O'Connor · 2004Theodore Roosevelt1 quote
No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we require him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor. — Theodore Roosevelt · 1903Thomas Jefferson1 quote
A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the highest duties of a good citizen: but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. — Thomas Jefferson · 1810Tom Doniphon1 quote
I know those law books mean a lot to you, but not out here. Out here a man settles his own problems. — Tom Doniphon · 1962Walter Sobchak1 quote
Has the whole world gone crazy? Am I the only one around here who gives a shit about the rules? Mark it zero! — Walter Sobchak · 1998William McKinley1 quote
Lynchings must not be tolerated in a great and civilized country like the United States; courts, not mobs, must execute the penalties of the law. — William McKinley · 1897