law quotes

I just usually go with my own taste. If I like something, and it happens to be against the law, well, then I might have a problem.

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.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

Lawless are they that make their wills their law.

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.

In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress ‚suspects.‘

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.

Man takes his law from the Earth; the Earth takes its law from Heaven; Heaven takes its law from the Tao. The law of the Tao is its being what it is.

Taste cannot be controlled by law.

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

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

No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man’s permission when we ask him to obey it.

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

A precedent embalms a principle.

The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that’s pretty important.

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.

I think we all change each other’s paths. I don’t know which law idea that is in physics, but I don’t think any of us can live without affecting one another.

It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

I am well aware that there are prisoners of conscience in the Soviet Union, including some who have said they have chosen to resist the law because of religious reasons.

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.

The bells will ring and the marriages will begin. And it’s a great day in our state for equal protection under the law for all people.

When the President does it, that means that it’s not illegal.

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.

I love being in a courtroom.

No true believer could be intolerant or a persecutor. If I were a magistrate and the law carried the death penalty against atheists, I would begin by sending to the stake whoever denounced another.

Obedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor.

I don’t know the law, the kind of law of quantity and quality, but I think the opportunity of people being able to express themselves and to have the means of production is a great thing. It’s also changing how we’re telling stories.

It is a fundamental principle of criminal law that an imputed offense must correspond exactly to the type of crime described by law. If no law applies exactly to the point in question, then there is no offense.

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

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‚within the limits of the law‘ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual.

In most communities it is illegal to cry ‚fire‘ in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?

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

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.

On the whole, we think of our consumers – other judges, lawyers, the public. The law that the Supreme Court establishes is the law that they must live by, so all things considered, it’s better to have it clearer than confusing.

I do hope that some of my dissents will one day be the law.

Make crime pay. Become a lawyer.

The intersection of law, politics, and technology is going to force a lot of good thinking.

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

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.

We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three words, ‚We, the people.‘

Law, without force, is impotent.

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

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

The roaring thunder of the law and the fear of the terror of judgment are both used to bring us to Christ, but the final victory culminating in our salvation is won through God’s loving-kindness.

The worst evil of disregard for some law is that it destroys respect for all law.

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

Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.

There is but one law for all, namely that law which governs all law, the law of our Creator, the law of humanity, justice, equity – the law of nature and of nations.

The best interpreter of the law is custom.

Liberty must be limited in order to be possessed.

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

Justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment.

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.

Freedom is a man’s natural power of doing what he pleases, so far as he is not prevented by force or law.

Law is always better than war.