Archive

Quotes

When law can do no right,
Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong.

—William Shakespeare, c. 1594

Resorting to the law to resolve a dispute is a declaration of spiritual bankruptcy.

—Quentin Crisp, 1984

Petty laws breed great crimes.

—Ouida, 1880

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me.

—Martin Luther King Jr., 1962

The law is established from above but becomes custom below.

—Su Zhe, c. 1100

All moanday, tearsday, wailsday, thumpsday, frightday, shatterday till the fear of the Law.

—James Joyce, 1939

An unjust law is no law at all.

—Saint Augustine, 395

Good men must not obey the laws too well.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1844

If law and justice do not attain their ends, the people will be unable to move hand or foot.

—Confucius, c. 500

In a court of fowls, the cockroach never wins its case.

—Rwandan proverb

Necessity knows no law except to conquer.

—Publilius Syrus, c. 50 BC

The law makes ten criminals where it restrains one.

—Voltairine de Cleyre, 1890

A functioning police state needs no police.

—William S. Burroughs, 1959