The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.

Revenge is a kind of wild justice, which the more a man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out.

I was losing interest in politics, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again. What I have done since then is pretty well known.

My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes.

Lawless are they that make their wills their law.

My parents didn’t want to move to Florida, but they turned sixty and that’s the law.

I am opposed to the accumulation of executive power anywhere.

Under the Timber and Stone Act of 1878, which might well have been called the ‚Dust and Ashes Act,‘ any citizen of the United States could take up one hundred and sixty acres of timber land and, by paying two dollars and a half an acre for it, obtain title.

If you must break the law, do it to seize power: in all other cases observe it.

I had nearly finished school because I was making effort not that bad on that. But there was a law in Germany after the war. You could not make your final examination before 18, so lots of people who were late because of the way had to do it first.

In a democracy, the majority of the citizens is capable of exercising the most cruel oppressions upon the minority.

Public opinion is the thermometer a monarch should constantly consult.

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.

In politics nothing is contemptible.

Democracy is a daring concept – a hope that we’ll be best governed if all of us participate in the act of government. It is meant to be a conversation, a place where the intelligence and local knowledge of the electorate sums together to arrive at actions that reflect the participation of the largest possible number of people.

In the 21st century, the countries that thrive will be the ones where citizens know their voices will be heard because the institutions are transparent.

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.

Unless a president can protect the privacy of the advice he gets, he cannot get the advice he needs.

For any young democracy, the most difficult but important step is burying the legacy of tyranny and establishing an economy and a government and institutions that abide by the rule of law. Every country faces challenges to the rule of law, including my own.

A statesman who confines himself to popular legislation – or, for the matter of that, a playwright who confines himself to popular plays – is like a blind man’s dog who goes wherever the blind man pulls him, on the ground that both of them want to go to the same place.

Even to observe neutrality you must have a strong government.

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in 2012.

One of the peculiarities of Delhi is that the term ‚reform‘ is associated only with passing of laws in Parliament. In fact, the most important reforms are those needed, without new laws, at various level of the government, in work practices and procedures.

Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.

A good Catholic meddles in politics, offering the best of himself, so that those who govern can govern. But what is the best that we can offer to those who govern? Prayer!

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, ‚Huh. It works. It makes sense.‘

That government is best which governs least.

More law, less justice.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

Men govern nothing with more difficulty than their tongues, and can moderate their desires more than their words.

To rule a country of a thousand chariots, there must be reverent attention to business, and sincerity; economy in expenditure, and love for men; and the employment of the people at the proper seasons.

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.

Power has only one duty – to secure the social welfare of the People.

When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.

The main foundations of every state, new states as well as ancient or composite ones, are good laws and good arms you cannot have good laws without good arms, and where there are good arms, good laws inevitably follow.

Man is not free unless government is limited.

I hope that a move toward clemency with Judge Afiuni would be a step towards the importance of maintaining a properly functioning justice system.

In America the President reigns for four years, and Journalism governs forever and ever.

Nobody is above the law. Imagine if there allegations against Modi and he is the Prime Minister. Should the case not be pursued just because he has become the PM. It should not be so that it should be stopped. I am not above the law.

In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself.

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.

You have to have a certain realism that government is a pretty blunt instrument, and without the constant attention of highly qualified people with the right metrics, it will fall into not doing things very well.

When police or prosecutors conceal significant exculpatory or impeaching material, we hold, it is ordinarily incumbent on the state to set the record straight.

No man is good enough to govern another man without the other’s consent.

I opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. It should be repealed and I will vote for its repeal on the Senate floor. I will also oppose any proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gays and lesbians from marrying.

A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

Justice Scalia and I served together on the D.C. Circuit. So his votes are not surprising to me. What I like about him is that he’s very funny and very smart.

One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.

The most perfect political community is one in which the middle class is in control, and outnumbers both of the other classes.

All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.

On account of being a democracy and run by the people, we are the only nation in the world that has to keep a government four years, no matter what it does.

I filed the MSRB Reform Act, along with Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Doug Jones, because the board that oversees the muni-bond market is too secretive and too incestuous. Its membership shares the same DNA. That means the rulebook for municipal bonds is in the hands of a board that resembles a revolving door of longtime industry confederates.

He who molds the public sentiment… makes statutes and decisions possible or impossible to make.

The safety of the people shall be the highest law.

Law is mind without reason.

Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this.

Men and women may form associations for and among themselves and be governed by stipulations that are mutually acceptable.

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 courts of justice.

Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.