Quotes About Law

If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth--certainly the machine will wear out… but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.

Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once?

Law never made men a whit more just; and, by means of their respect for it, even the well-disposed are daily made the agents of injustice.

I wish my countrymen to consider, that whatever the human law may be, neither an individual nor a nation can ever commit the least act of injustice against the obscurest individual, without having to pay the penalty for it. A government which deliberately enacts injustice, and persists in it, will at length ever become the laughing-stock of the world.

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

A common and natural result of an undue respect of law is, that you may see a file of soldiers, colonel, captain, corporal, privates, powder-monkeys, and all, marching in admirable order over hill and dale to the wars, against their wills, ay, against their common sense and consciences, which makes it very steep marching indeed, and produces a palpitation of the heart.

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.

Children, who play life, discern its true law and relations more clearly than men, who fail to live it worthily, but who think that they are wiser by experience, that is, by failure.

La loi n'a jamais rendu les hommes plus justes d'un iota ; et, à cause du respect qu'ils lui marquent, les êtres bien disposés eux-même deviennent les agents de l'injustice.

Death is beautiful when seen to be a law, and not an accident. It is as common as life.

if injustice, is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.

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.

si elle (la loi) est d'une telle nature qu'elle fasse de vous l'agent de l'injustice vis-à-vis d'autrui alors je déclare qu'il faut enfreindre la loi

Who shall distinguish between the law by which a brook finds its river, the instinct by which a bird performs its migrations, and the knowledge by which a man steers his ship round the globe? The globe is the richer for the variety of its inhabitants.

The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free. They are the lovers of law and order who observe the law when the government breaks it.

Não é desejável cultivar o respeito às leis no mesmo nível do respeito aos direitos. (...) A lei nunca fez os homens sequer um pouco mais justos; e o respeito reverente pela lei tem levado até mesmo os bem-intencionados a agir quotidianamente como mensageiros da injustiça.

Il est plus désirable de cultiver le respect du bien que le respect de la loi. Nous devons être d'abord des hommes et ensuite seulement des sujets

Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right.

Our notions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those instances which we detect; but the harmony which results from a far greater number of seemingly conflicting, but really concurring, laws, which we have not detected, is still more wonderful.

La legge non renderà mai gli uomini liberi; sono gli uomini a dover mantenere libera la legge.

If a man who has no property refuses but once to earn nine shillings for the State, he is put in prison for a period unlimited by any law that I know, and determined only by the discretion of those who put him there; but if he should steal ninety

La legge non ha mai reso gli uomini neppure poco più giusti; e anzi, a causa del rispetto della legge, perfino gli onesti sono quotidianamente trasformati in agenti d'ingiustizia.

Love is the fulfilling of the law. Did you ever think what he meant by that? In those days men were working the passage to Heaven by keeping the Ten Commandments, and the hundred and ten other commandments which they had manufactured out of them. Christ came and said, I will show you a more simple way. If you do one thing, you will do these hundred and ten things, without ever thinking about them. If you love, you will unconsciously fulfill the whole law.

Order is the dream of man, but chaos is the law of nature.