Motivational Quotes

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

Best Quotes about Law and lawyers

I know of no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their strict execution.

Grant, Ulysses S.

Lawyers and painters can soon make what's black, white.

Proverb

Amongst the learned the lawyers claim first place, the most self-satisfied class of people, as they roll their rock of Sisyphus and string together six hundred laws in the same breath, no matter whether relevant or not, piling up opinion on opinion and gloss on gloss to make their profession seem the most difficult of all. Anything which causes trouble has special merit in their eyes.

Erasmus, Desiderius

I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney.

Johnson, Samuel

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.

Arendt, Hannah

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

Talmud, The

If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, and dry cleaners depressed.

Ostman, Virginia

Judges ought to be more learned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.

Bacon, Francis

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

10.

A lawyer is a gentlemen that rescues your estate from your enemies and then keeps it to himself.

Brougham, Lord Henry P.

11.

The judge is found guilty when a criminal is acquitted.

Syrus, Publilius

12.

Laws are felt only when the individual comes into conflict with them.

Lafollette, Suzanne

13.

Who thinks the law has anything to do with justice? It's what we have because we can't have justice.

Mcilvanney, William

14.

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

Gandhi, Mahatma

15.

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

Younger, Evelle

16.

Laws are not invented. They grow out of circumstances.

Azarias

17.

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

Sprecht, Robert D.

18.

Lawyers enjoy a little mystery, you know. Why, if everybody came forward and told the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth straight out, we should all retire to the workhouse.

Sayers, Dorothy L.

19.

Curse on all laws, but those that love has made.

Pope, Alexander

20.

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

21.

Law school taught me one thing; how to take two situations that are exactly the same and show how they are different.

Pomerantz, Hart

22.

The trouble with law is lawyers.

Darrow, Clarence

23.

I would uphold the law if for no other reason but to protect myself.

Moore, Thomas

24.

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

Franklin, Benjamin

25.

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

Thoreau, Henry David

26.

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

27.

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

28.

The law helps those who watch, not those who sleep.

Proverb

29.

Keep out of Chancery. It's being ground to bits in a slow mill; it's being roasted at a slow fire; it's being stung to death by single bees; it's being drowned by drops; it's going mad by grains.

Dickens, Charles

30.

The first thing we do, lets kill the lawyers. [Henry Iv]

Shakespeare, William

31.

He who goes to law for a sheep loses his cow.

Proverb, Spanish

32.

The law is simply expediency wearing a long white dress.

Crisp, Quentin

33.

We may not all break the Ten Commandments, but we are certainly all capable of it. Within us lurks the breaker of all laws, ready to spring out at the first real opportunity.

Duncan, Isadora

34.

The severity of the laws prevents their execution.

Montesquieu, Charles De

35.

Written laws are like spider's webs; they will catch, it is true, the weak and the poor, but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful.

Anacharsis

36.

The laws and the stage, both are a form of exhibitionism.

Welles, Orson

37.

Law, without force, is impotent.

Pascal, Blaise

38.

I said there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white, according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are as slaves.

Swift, Jonathan

39.

Lawyers and woodpeckers have long bills.

Proverb

40.

When the severity of the law is to be softened, let pity, not bribes, be the motive.

Cervantes, Miguel De

41.

Where the law is uncertain there is no law.

Proverb

42.

It would be better to have no laws at all, than to have too many.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

43.

Fools and obstinate men make lawyers rich.

Proverb

44.

Laws and customs may be creative of vice; and should be therefore perpetually under process of observation and correction: but laws and customs cannot be creative of virtue: they may encourage and help to preserve it; but they cannot originate it.

Martineau, Harriet

45.

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

Montesquieu, Charles De

46.

I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis on the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.

Coolidge, Calvin

47.

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

48.

Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.

Montesquieu, Charles De

49.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

50.

Laws are the sovereigns of sovereigns.

Louis XIV