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Law


I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.
Solomon  (???-931 BC)
"Ecclesiastes", KJV, 3:16

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
Plato  (427–347 BC)

Laws should be interpreted in a liberal sense so that their intention may be preserved.
Cicero  (106–43 BC)

Too long have we said to ourselves "intolerance of another's politics is barbarous and not to be countenanced in a civilized country.  Are we not free?  Shall a man be denied his right to speak under the law which established that right?"  I tell you that freedom does not mean the freedom to exploit law in order to destroy it!  It is not freedom which permits the Trojan Horse to be wheeled within the gates.  He who is not for Rome and Roman Law and Roman liberty is against Rome.  He who espouses tyranny and oppression and the old dead despotisms is against Rome.  He who plots against established authority and incites the populace to violence is against Rome.  He cannot ride two horses at the same time.  We cannot be for lawful ordinances and for an alien conspiracy at one and the same moment.
Cicero  (106–43 BC)
Second Oration before the Roman Senate

The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.
Tacitus  (AD 56–115)

Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.
Benjamin Franklin  (1706–1790)

If the distribution of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates.  But let there be no change by usurpation: for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed.
George Washington  (1732–1799)

Let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.
Thomas Jefferson  (1743–1826)

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if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be tomorrow.  Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed?
James Madison  (1751–1836)
"The Federalist Papers, Number 62", 1788

When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken.
Benjamin Disraeli  (1804–1881)

No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.
Mark Twain  (1835–1910)

If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.
Winston Churchill  (1874–1965)

Nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced.
Albert Einstein  (1879–1955)

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels.  For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Henry Mencken  (1880–1956)

In my youth I stressed freedom, and in my old age I stress order.  I have made the great discovery that liberty is a product of order.
Will Durant  (1885–1981)

Man became free when he recognized that he was subject to law.
Will Durant  (1885–1981)


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