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

It is right to give every man his due.

We win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.

There is an orderliness in the universe, there is an unalterable law governing everything and every being that exists or lives. It is no blind law; for no blind law can govern the conduct of living beings.

To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.

A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.

If you’re in favour of any policy – reform, revolution, stability, regression, whatever – if you’re at least minimally moral, it’s because you think it’s somehow good for people. And good for people means conforming to their fundamental nature.

Guantanamo is still open, but it’s unlikely that serious torture is going on at Guantanamo. There is just too much inspection.

Laws, like houses, lean on one another.

One must not cheat anyone, not even the world of its victory.

Some may remember, if you have good memories, that there used to be a concept in Anglo-American law called a presumption of innocence, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Now that’s so deep in history that there’s no point even bringing it up, but it did once exist.

To know the laws is not to memorize their letter but to grasp their full force and meaning.

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

The highest reach of injustice is to be deemed just when you are not.

So what we’re talking about here is human rights. The right to live like a human. The right to live, period. And what we’re facing in Africa is an unprecedented threat to human dignity and equality.

Growing up, I decided, a long time ago, I wouldn’t accept any manmade differences between human beings, differences made at somebody else’s insistence or someone else’s whim or convenience.

Even Gaddafi’s adversaries assure us that he stood out for his intelligence as a student; he was expelled from high-school for his anti-monarchic activities. He managed to enroll in another high-school and later graduated in law at the University of Benghazi at the age of 21.

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.

Our brand of democracy is hard. But I can promise that a year from now, when I no longer hold this office, I’ll be right there with you as a citizen – inspired by those voices of fairness and vision, of grit and good humor and kindness that have helped America travel so far.

Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws.

In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don’t try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.

Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.

And so I would not enforce a law that would reject people and turn them away without giving them a fair and due process to determine if we should give them asylum and refuge.

I think all Americans believe in human rights. And health is an often overlooked aspect of basic human rights. And it’s one that’s easily corrected. The reason I say that is that many of the diseases that we treat around the world, I knew when I was a child. My mother was a registered nurse. And they no longer exist in our country.

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.

I’m not for gay marriage, but I’m not for discriminating against people.

Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you.

None of my peers avoided prison. None of ‚em.

The best interpreter of the law is custom.

Man, all lives matter.

We need to pass comprehensive immigration reform, period.

I get very little sleep when the court is sitting.

Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.

I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that’s not what America’s about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don’t contract them.

Justice is expensive in America. There are no Free Passes… You might want to remember this, the next time you get careless and blow off a few Parking Tickets. They will come back to haunt you the next time you see a Cop car in your rear-view mirror.

All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice.

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.

There is no such thing as part freedom.

No one doubts that innocent men, women and children have been the victims of chemical weapons attacks in Syria. And there’s no doubt who is responsible for this heinous use of chemical weapons in Syria: the Syrian regime.

If we cut up beasts simply because they cannot prevent us and because we are backing our own side in the struggle for existence, it is only logical to cut up imbeciles, criminals, enemies, or capitalists for the same reasons.

Let us not listen to those who think we ought to be angry with our enemies, and who believe this to be great and manly. Nothing is so praiseworthy, nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul, as clemency and readiness to forgive.

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.

People often speak of God being even-handed. God is not even-handed. God is biased, in favor of the weak, of the despised.

If I were a Negro, I’d be fighting, as Martin Luther King fought, for human recognition and justice. I’d rather go down with my flag flying. If you’re weak or crippled, or you can’t speak out or fight back in some way, then people don’t hesitate to treat you badly.

It was an act of patriotism when we worked to pass a law allowing the prosecution of federal hate crimes in the name of Matthew Shepard and James Byrd.

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

We learned about honesty and integrity – that the truth matters… that you don’t take shortcuts or play by your own set of rules… and success doesn’t count unless you earn it fair and square.

No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.

These men ask for just the same thing, fairness, and fairness only. This, so far as in my power, they, and all others, shall have.

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

Let us remember we are all part of one American family. We are united in common values, and that includes belief in equality under the law, basic respect for public order, and the right of peaceful protest.

An index is a great leveller.

No advance in wealth, no softening of manners, no reform or revolution has ever brought human equality a millimeter nearer.

Israel is guilty of apartheid and persecution of the Palestinian people, both inside Israel and also in the Occupied Territories.

I used to always fight for human rights. I still fight for Leonard Peltier, who’s spent 35 years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit.

Humanitarianism consists in never sacrificing a human being to a purpose.

There are thousands of Palestinians in prison virtually for no reason.

I’ve used the prestige and influence of having been a president of the United States as effectively as possible. And secondly, I’ve still been able to carry out my commitments to peace and human rights and environmental quality and freedom and democracy and so forth.

Reform is not pleasant, but grievous; no person can reform themselves without suffering and hard work, how much less a nation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.