Motivational Quotes

Law and lawyers

Rulers were made to be broken.

- Isenberg, Michael

Best Quotes about Law and lawyers

The law is a sort of hocus-pocus science, that smiles in yer face while it picks yer pocket: and the glorious uncertainty of it is of more use to the professors than the justice of it.

Macklin, Charles

A jury too often has at least one member more ready to hang the panel than to hang the traitor.

Lincoln, Abraham

The laws of each are convertible into the laws of any other.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Certainly one of the highest duties of the citizen is a scrupulous obedience to the laws of the nation. But it is not the highest duty.

Jefferson, Thomas

Laws and institutions, like clocks, must occasionally be cleaned, wound up, and set to true time.

Beecher, Henry Ward

Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.

Montesquieu, Charles De

The law was made for one thing alone, for the exploitation of those who don't understand it, or are prevented by naked misery from obeying it.

Brecht, Bertolt

The kind of lawyer you hope the other fellow has.

Chandler, Raymond

There is no nation so powerful, as the one that obeys its laws not from principles of fear or reason, but from passion.

Montesquieu, Charles De

10.

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for law, so much as a respect for right.

Thoreau, Henry David

11.

Fools and obstinate men make lawyers rich.

Proverb

12.

Laws are the sovereigns of sovereigns.

Louis XIV

13.

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

Young, Brigham

14.

This is a court of law young man, not a court of justice.

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

15.

All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures should not be slain nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away. This is the pure unchangeable law.

Sutrakritanga

16.

Even an attorney of moderate talent can postpone doomsday year after year, for the system of appeals that pervades American jurisprudence amounts to a legalistic wheel of fortune, a game of chance, somewhat fixed in the favor of the criminal, that the participants play interminably.

Capote, Truman

17.

In cross examination, as in fishing, nothing is more ungainly than a fisherman pulled into the water by his catch.

Nizer, Louis

18.

The spirit of moderation should also be the spirit of the lawgiver.

Montesquieu, Charles De

19.

In a democracy -- even if it is a so-called democracy like our white-?litist one -- the greatest veneration one can show the rule of law is to keep a watch on it, and to reserve the right to judge unjust laws and the subversion of the function of the law by the power of the state. That vigilance is the most important proof of respect for the law.

Gordimer, Nadine

20.

Ignorance of the law excuses no man from practicing it.

Mizner, Addison

21.

The magistrates are the ministers for the laws, the judges their interpreters, the rest of us are servants of the law, that we all may be free.

Cicero, Marcus T.

22.

An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.

Gandhi, Mahatma

23.

The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.

Tocqueville, Alexis De

24.

A country survives its legislation. That truth should not comfort the conservative nor depress the radical. For it means that public policy can enlarge its scope and increase its audacity, can try big experiments without trembling too much over the result. This nation could enter upon the most radical experiments and could afford to fail in them.

Lippmann, Walter

25.

No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law. How can it be within the law? The law is stationary. The law is fixed. The law is a chariot wheel which binds us all regardless of conditions or place or time.

Goldman, Emma

26.

Law, without force, is impotent.

Pascal, Blaise

27.

The severity of the laws prevents their execution.

Montesquieu, Charles De

28.

Lawyers and woodpeckers have long bills.

Proverb

29.

I was never ruined but twice; once when I lost a lawsuit and once when I won one.

Voltaire

30.

The good of the people is the greatest law.

Cicero, Marcus T.

31.

Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap. Let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges. Let it be written in primers, spelling books, and in almanacs. Let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in the courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation.

Lincoln, Abraham

32.

Under any conditions, anywhere, whatever you are doing, there is some ordinance under which you can be booked.

Sprecht, Robert D.

33.

The good lawyer is not the man who has an eye to every side and angle of contingency, and qualifies all his qualifications, but who throws himself on your part so heartily, that he can get you out of a scrape.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

34.

Those laws, being forged for universal application, are in perpetual conflict with personal interest, just as personal interest is always in contradiction with the general interest. Good for society, our laws are very bad for the individuals whereof it is composed; for, if they one time protect the individual, they hinder, trouble, fetter him for three quarters of his life.

Sade, Marquis De

35.

It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.

Roosevelt, Theodore

36.

Fish die when they are out of water, and people die without law and order.

Talmud, The

37.

When one wanted one's interests looking after whatever the cost, it was not so well for a lawyer to be over honest, else he might not be up to other people's tricks.

Eliot, George

38.

The court is like a palace of marble; it's composed of people very hard and very polished.

La Bruyere, Jean De

39.

Laws are not invented. They grow out of circumstances.

Azarias

40.

The clearest way to show what the rule of law means to us in everyday life is to recall what has happened when there is no rule of law.

Eisenhower, Dwight D.

41.

People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have must to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.

Burke, Edmund

42.

We should have learnt by now that laws and court decisions can only point the way. They can establish criteria of right and wrong. And they can provide a basis for rooting out the evils of bigotry and racism. But they cannot wipe away centuries of oppression and injustice -- however much we might desire it.

Humphrey, Hubert H.

43.

Law cannot persuade when it cannot punish.

Saying

44.

An incompetent attorney can delay a trial for years or months. A competent attorney can delay one even longer.

Younger, Evelle

45.

Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.

Engels, Friedrich

46.

The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime.

Stirner, Max

47.

We eagerly get hold of a law that serves as a weapon to our passions.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

48.

As soon as you begin to say We have always done things this way -- perhaps that might be a better way, conscious law-making is beginning. As soon as you begin to say We do things this way -- they do things that way -- what is to be done about it? men are beginning to feel towards justice, that resides between the endless jar of right and wrong.

Cam, Helen M.

49.

Laws too gentle, are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.

Franklin, Benjamin

50.

Somebody figured it out -- we have 35 million laws trying to enforce Ten Commandments.

Wilson, Earl