Sayings about Law
Law cannot persuade when it cannot punish. ~ Traditional Proverb
Fear the law not the judge. ~ Russian Proverb
Few laws, good nations. ~ German Proverbs
Custom is stronger than law. ~ Russian Proverbs
The more laws the less justice. ~ Traditional Proverb
Win your lawsuit and lose your money. ~ Chinese Proverb
Where there is no law there is no transgression. ~ Bible
There’s one law for the rich and another for the poor. ~ Traditional Proverb
When violence comes into the house, law and justice leave through the chimney. ~ Turkish Proverbs
Laws, like the spider’s web, catch the fly and let the hawk go free. ~ Spanish Proverbs
A lawsuit is a fruit-tree planted in a lawyer’s garden. ~ Italian Proverbs
Law is a flag and gold is the wind that makes it move. ~ Russian Proverb
A lean agreement is better than a fat lawsuit. ~ German Proverb
The law is three days older than the earth. ~ Estonian Proverbs
A bad compromise is better than a good lawsuit. ~ French Proverbs
Where the law is uncertain there is no law. ~ Traditional Proverb
Laws control the lesser man; right conduct controls the greater one. ~ Chinese Proverb
Custom and law are sisters. ~ Slovak Proverb
Go to law for a sheep and lose your cow. ~ German Proverb
Possession is nine tenths of the law. ~ Traditional Proverb
To violate the law is the same crime in the emperor as in the subject. ~ Chinese Proverb
He that loves law will soon get his fill of it. ~ Scottish Proverbs
Where there are no laws, they can’t be broken. ~ Yugoslavian Proverb
He who goes to law for a sheep loses his cow. ~ Spanish Proverb
Men make laws; women make morals. ~ French Proverb
He who starts a lawsuit makes a hole in the dike. ~ Arabian Proverbs
The maker of laws must be severe; who executes them must be generous. ~ Chinese Proverb
Laws without punishment are like bells with no clackers. ~ Czech Proverb
The law says what the king pleases. ~ French Proverb
Settling a dispute through the law is like losing a cow for the sake of a cat. ~ Chinese Proverb
Quotations about Law
Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through. ~ Jonathan Swift
Laws, like houses, lean on one another. ~ Edmund Burke
The final test of civilization of a people is the respect they have for law. ~ Lewis F Korns
People are more afraid of the laws of Man than of God, because their punishment seems to be nearest. ~ William Penn
The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced. ~ Frank Zappa
The trouble with law is lawyers. ~ Clarence Darrow
I haven’t committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law. ~ David Dinkins
A law is valuable, not because it is a law, but because there is right in it. ~ Henry Ward Beecher
Law: the only game where the best players get to sit on the bench. ~ Author Unknown
Appeal. In law, to put the dice into the box for another throw. ~ Ambrose Bierce
In law, nothing is certain but the expense. ~ Samuel Butler
Ignorance of the law excuses no man from practicing it. ~ Addison Mizner
The law is reason, free from passion. ~ Aristotle
Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty. ~ Henry M. Robert
If a man sets out to study all the laws, he will have no time left to transgress them. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
Lawsuit: A machine which you go into as a pig and come out of as a sausage. ~ Ambrose Bierce
One of the advantages of having laws is the pleasure one may take in breaking them. ~ Iain M. Banks
Many laws as certainly make bad men, as bad men make many laws. ~Walter Savage Landor
One with the law is a majority. ~ Calvin Coolidge
We may brave human laws, but we cannot resist natural ones. ~ Jules Verne
Law never made men a whit more just. ~ Henry David Thoreau
When the severity of the law is to be softened, let pity, not bribes, be the motive. ~ Miguel De Cervantes
It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws. ~ Theodore Roosevelt
Without law men are beasts. ~ Maxwell Anderson
Laws are not masters but servants, and he rules them who obeys them. ~ Henry Ward Beecher
Men seldom understand any laws but those they feel. ~ George Savile
Men fight for freedom, then they begin to accumulate laws to take it away from themselves. ~ Author Unknown
When a man is denied the right to live the life he believes in, he has no choice but to become an outlaw. ~ Nelson Mandela
Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law. ~ Jean Anouilh
Law is a bottomless pit. ~ John Arbuthnot
Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law. ~ Oliver Goldsmith
Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered. ~ Aristotle
There is plenty of law at the end of a nightstick. ~ Grover Whalen
Laws are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made. ~ Otto Von Bismarck
The United States is the greatest law factory the world has ever known. ~ Charles Evans Hughes
The law is simply expediency wearing a long white dress. ~ Quentin Crisp
Every law is an infraction of liberty. ~ Jeremy Bentham
Law and equity are two things which God has joined, but which man has put asunder. ~ Charles Caleb Colton
It ain’t no sin if you crack a few laws now and then, just so long as you don’t break any. ~ Mae West
We cannot live in peace without Law. And though law cannot be perfect, it may be just if it is written in ignorance of the identity of the claimants and applied equally to all. ~ David Mamet
Whenever men take the law into their own hands, the loser is the law. And when the law loses, freedom languishes. ~ Robert F. Kennedy
Every new time will give its law. ~ Maxim Gorky
Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught. ~ Honoré de Balzac
May you have a lawsuit in which you know you are in the right. ~ Gypsy Curse
Laws are confusing documents. They get in the way of justice. ~ Paolo Bacigalupi
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. ~ Edmund Burke
The law cannot save those who deny it but neither can the law serve any who do not use it… ~ Lyndon B. Johnson
Laws made by common consent must not be trampled on by individuals. ~ Thomas Jefferson
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
The more laws the more offenders. ~ Thomas Fuller
Law intends indeed to do service to human life, but it is not able when men do not choose to accept her services; for it is only in those who are obedient to her that she displays her special virtue. ~ Epictetus
We eagerly get hold of a law that serves as a weapon to our passions. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
A nation that will not enforce its laws has no claim to the respect and allegiance of its people. ~ Ambrose Bierce
Reason is the life of the law, nay the common law is nothing else but reason. ~ Sir Edward Coke
The law often permits what honor prohibits. ~ Bernard Joseph Saurin
Bad laws are the worst form of tyranny. ~ Edmund Burke
No man is above the law, and no man is below it. ~ Theodore Roosevelt
It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive. ~ Earl Warren
Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law. ~ Oliver Goldsmith
The law was made for one thing alone, for the exploitation of those who don’t understand it. ~ Bertolt Brecht
Good laws lead to the making of better ones; bad ones bring about worse. ~ Jean-Jacque Rousseau
The only road to the highest stations in this country is that of the law. ~ Sir William Jones
Where the law ends tyranny begins. ~ Henry Fielding
Written laws are like spider’s webs; they will catch, it is true, the weak and the poor, but would be torn in pieces by the rich and powerful. ~ Anacharsis
This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice. ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
The law is the public conscience. ~ Thomas Hobbes
Come, agree, the law’s costly. ~ Jonathan Swift
It is impossible for us to break the law. We can only break ourselves against the law. ~ Cecil B. De Mille
The laws of each are convertible into the laws of any other. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Law is nothing unless close behind it stands a warm living public opinion. ~ Wendell Phillips
The magistrates are the ministers for the laws, the judges their interpreters, the rest of us are servants of the law, that we all may be free. ~ Marcus T. Cicero
Good laws make it easier to do right and harder to do wrong. ~ William E. Gladstone
The trouble with the laws these days is that criminals know their rights better than their wrongs. ~ Author Unknown
The clearest way to show what the rule of law means to us in everyday life is to recall what has happened when there is no rule of law. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhower
Law, without force, is impotent. ~ Blaise Pascal
The universal and absolute law is that natural justice which cannot be written down, but which appeals to the hearts of all. ~ Victor Cousin
When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken. ~ Benjamin Disraeli
Good men must not obey the laws too well. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
It’s a strange thing, we think that law brings order. Law doesn’t. How do we know that law does not bring order? Look around us. We live under the rule of law. Notice how much order we have? Howard Zinn
The good of the people is the greatest law. ~ Marcus T. Cicero
Law is not law, if it violates the principles of eternal justice. ~ Lydia Maria Child
Laws are dangerous to everyone, innocent and guilty alike, because they have no human understanding in and of themselves. They must be interpreted. ~ Brian Herbert & Keven J.Anderson
Law is order, and good law is good order. ~ Aristotle
There must be law, steadily invoked and respected by all nations, for without law, the world promises only such meager justice as the pity of the strong upon the weak. ~ Dwight D. Eisenhowe
Laws and institutions, like clocks, must occasionally be cleaned, wound up, and set to true time. ~ Henry Ward Beecher
We cannot expect people to have respect for law and order until we teach respect to those we have entrusted to enforce those laws. ~ Hunter S. Thompson
The wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis on the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement. ~ Calvin Coolidge
An unjust law is itself a species of violence. ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Law is not justice and a trial is not a scientific inquiry into truth. A trial is the resolution of a dispute. ~ Edison Haines
Defining Law and Justice & Aristotle’s Categories of Justice (Video)