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Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.—ARISTOTLE, Politics
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The law has no power to command obedience except that of habit, which can only be given by time, so that a readiness to change from old to new laws enfeebles the power of the law.—ARISTOTLE, Politics
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Equity is the outcome of facts, law is the application of principles to facts.—BALZAC, The Commission in Lunacy
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It becomes not a law-maker to be a law-breaker.—BIAS
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The law is good, if a man use it lawfully.—Bible, 1 Timothy 1:8
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In spite of all the cynics say, the infallible way of inducing a sense of wrongdoing is by making laws.—WILLIAM BOLITHO
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Solon used to say . . . that laws were like cobwebs,—for that if any trifling or powerless thing fell into them, they held it fast; while if it were something weightier, it broke through them and was off.—DIOGENES LAERTIUS, Solon
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Man became free when he recognized that he was subject to law.—WILL DURANT, The Life of Greece
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The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.—ANATOLE FRANCE
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To be sure judicial doctrine is one thing, practice another. The pressure of so-called great cases is sometimes too much for judicial self-restraint, and the Supreme Court from time to time in its history has forgotten its own doctrines when they should have been most remembered.—JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, Law and Politics
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If facts are changing law cannot be static. So-called immutable principles must accommodate themselves to facts of life, for facts are stubborn and will not yield. In truth, what are now deemed immutable principles once, themselves, grew out of living conditions.—JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, Law and Politics
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The Law is the true embodiment
Of everything that's excellent.
It has no kind of fault or flaw,
And I, my Lords, embody the Law.—W. S. GILBERT, lolanthe
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Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.—GOLDSMITH, The Traveller
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I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution.—ULYSSES S. GRANT
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The felt necessities of the time, the prevalent moral and political theories, institutions of public policy, avowed or unconscious, even the prejudices which judges share with their fellow men, have had a good deal more to do than the syllogism in determining the rules by which men should be governed.—JUSTICE HOLMES
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The laws of God, the laws of man,
He may keep that will and can;
Not I: let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me.—A. E. HOUSMAN, Last Poems
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Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.—JEFFERSON
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The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.—SAMUEL JOHNSON
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Make laws as though all men were good: The wicked triumph, the good are crushed.
Make laws as though all men were evil: The wicked slip through them or circumvent them. Only the good obey them and suffer.—MAETERLINCK, Before the Great Silence
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Men of most renowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law.—MILTON, Tetrachordon
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Where law ends, tyranny begins.—WILLIAM PITT
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Marius said that the law spoke too softly to be heard in such a noise of war.—PLUTARCH, Lives
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In a thousand pounds of law there's not an ounce of love.—Proverb
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Human laws reach not thoughts.—Proverb
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He that is suffered to do more than is fitting, will do more than is lawful.—Proverb
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Where there are many laws, there are many enormities.—Proverb
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The worst of law is that one suit breeds twenty.—Proverb
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Some go to law for the wagging of a straw.—Proverb
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He that would thrive by law must see his enemy's counsel as well as his own.—Proverb
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Good men want the laws only for their defence.—Proverb
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Law cannot persuade where it cannot punish.—Proverb
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Laws catch flies, but let hornets go free.—Proverb
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Agree, for the law is costly.—Proverb
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An ill plea should be well pleaded.—Proverb
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Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse.—ROUSSEAU, The Social Contract
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Equity is a roguish thing. For law we have a measure, know what to trust to; Equity is according to the conscience of him that is Chancellor, and as that is larger or narrower, so is Equity. 'Tis all one as if they should make the standard for the measure we call a "foot" a Chancellor's foot ; what an uncertain measure would this be! One Chancellor has a long foot, another a short foot, a third an indifferent foot. 'Tis the same thing in the Chancellor's conscience.—JOHN SELDEN, Table Talk
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Ignorance of the law excuses no man; not that all men know the law, but because 'tis an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to refute him.—JOHN SELDEN, Table Talk
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Old father antic the law.—SHAKESPEARE, Henry IV
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Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled o'er, should undo a man?—SHAKESPEARE, Henry VI
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The law hath not been dead, though it bath slept.—SHAKESPEARE, Measure for Measure
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In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt
But being season'd with a gracious voice,
Obscures the show of evil?—SHAKESPEARE, The Merchant of Venice
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Is it so nominated in the bond?—SHAKESPEARE, The Merchant of Venice
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'Tis not in the bond.—SHAKESPEARE, The Merchant of Venice
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Still you keep o' the windy side of the law.—SHAKESPEARE, Twelfth Night
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The laws are with us, and God on our side.—SOUTHEY, Popular Disaffection
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Law is the mechanism of human affairs.—SUN YAT-SEN, Memoirs of a Chinese Revolutionary
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Mastering the lawless science of our law,
That codeless myriad of precedent,
That wilderness of single instances.—TENNYSON, Aylmer's Field
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Rigorous law is often rigorous injustice.—TERENCE, Heauton Timoroumenos
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Gentlemen: You have undertaken to cheat me. I will not sue you, for law takes too long. I will ruin you.—CORNELIUS VANDERBILT, Josephson: The Robber Barons
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The law: It has honored us; may we honor it.—DANIEL WEBSTER
