Motivational Quotes

Law and lawyers

To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.

- Stanton, Elizabeth Cady

Best Quotes about Law and lawyers

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

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

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

Law and equity are two things which God has joined, but which man has put asunder.

Colton, Charles Caleb

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

Grant, Ulysses S.

In a state where corruption abounds, laws must be very numerous.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

Law, without force, is impotent.

Pascal, Blaise

Laws are not masters, but servants, and he rules them, who obeys them.

Becker, Ward

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

Younger, Evelle

10.

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

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

11.

A judge is a law student who grades his own papers.

Mencken, H. L.

12.

Bad laws are the worst form of tyranny.

Burke, Edmund

13.

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.

14.

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

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

15.

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

La Bruyere, Jean De

16.

Where the law is uncertain there is no law.

Proverb

17.

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

18.

The only laws of matter are those that our minds must fabricate and the only laws of mind are fabricated for it by matter.

Maxwell, James Clerk

19.

The law often permits what honor prohibits.

Saurin, Bernard Joseph

20.

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.

21.

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

Stirner, Max

22.

Whenever men take the law into their own hands, the loser is the law. And when the law loses, freedom languishes.

Kennedy, Robert F.

23.

Some things are easier to legalize than to legitimate.

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

24.

It is the trade of lawyers to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour.

Jefferson, Thomas

25.

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

Beecher, Henry Ward

26.

Ignorance of the law excuses no man from practicing it.

Mizner, Addison

27.

Scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question.

Tocqueville, Alexis De

28.

Useless laws weaken the necessary laws.

Montesquieu, Charles De

29.

In law, nothing is certain but the expense.

Butler, Samuel

30.

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

Wilson, Earl

31.

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

Lafollette, Suzanne

32.

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

Voltaire

33.

If the laws could speak for themselves, they would complain of the lawyers.

Halifax, Edward F.

34.

Law cannot persuade when it cannot punish.

Saying

35.

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

Pope, Alexander

36.

The judge is found guilty when a criminal is acquitted.

Syrus, Publilius

37.

The law is simply expediency wearing a long white dress.

Crisp, Quentin

38.

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

39.

Laws are the sovereigns of sovereigns.

Louis XIV

40.

Where the law ends tyranny begins.

Fielding, Henry

41.

I have enforced the law against killing certain animals and many others, but the greatest progress of righteousness among men comes from the exhortation in favor of non-injury to life and abstention from killing living beings.

Asoka

42.

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

43.

Are not laws dangerous which inhibit the passions? Compare the centuries of anarchy with those of the strongest legalism in any country you like and you will see that it is only when the laws are silent that the greatest actions appear.

Sade, Marquis De

44.

The law is reason, free from passion.

Aristotle

45.

The due process of law as we use it, I believe, rests squarely on the liberal idea of conflict and resolution.

Trapp, June L.

46.

God works wonders now and then; Behold a lawyer, an honest man.

Franklin, Benjamin

47.

Lawyers and woodpeckers have long bills.

Proverb

48.

Petty laws breed great crimes.

Ouida

49.

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

50.

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