Quotes about law and lawyers

"I haven't committed a crime. What I did was fail to comply with the law."

Dinkins, David on law and lawyers   

"When men are pure, laws are useless; when men are corrupt, laws are broken."

Disraeli, Benjamin on law and lawyers   

"We may not all break the Ten Commandments, but we are certainly all capable of it. Within us lurks the breaker of all laws, ready to spring out at the first real opportunity."

Duncan, Isadora on law and lawyers   

"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."

Eisenhower, Dwight D. on law and lawyers   

"When one wanted one's interests looking after whatever the cost, it was not so well for a lawyer to be over honest, else he might not be up to other people's tricks."

Eliot, George on law and lawyers   

"Good men must not obey the laws too well."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on law and lawyers
5 fans of this quote   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"The laws of each are convertible into the laws of any other."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on law and lawyers   

"The wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on law and lawyers   

"The good lawyer is not the man who has an eye to every side and angle of contingency, and qualifies all his qualifications, but who throws himself on your part so heartily, that he can get you out of a scrape."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on law and lawyers
4 fans of this quote   

"No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my own constitution; the only wrong what is against it."

Emerson, Ralph Waldo on law and lawyers
3 fans of this quote   

"Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal."

Engels, Friedrich on law and lawyers   

"Here lies one believe it if you can, who thought an attorney, was a honest man."

Epitaph on law and lawyers   

"Amongst the learned the lawyers claim first place, the most self-satisfied class of people, as they roll their rock of Sisyphus and string together six hundred laws in the same breath, no matter whether relevant or not, piling up opinion on opinion and gloss on gloss to make their profession seem the most difficult of all. Anything which causes trouble has special merit in their eyes."

Erasmus, Desiderius on law and lawyers   

"Where the law ends tyranny begins."

Fielding, Henry on law and lawyers   

"God works wonders now and then; Behold a lawyer, an honest man."

Franklin, Benjamin on law and lawyers
3 fans of this quote   

"Laws too gentle, are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed."

Franklin, Benjamin on law and lawyers
6 fans of this quote   

"A successful lawsuit is the one worn by a policeman."

Frost, Robert on law and lawyers   

"The jury consist of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer."

Frost, Robert on law and lawyers
6 fans of this quote   

"Our human laws are more or less imperfect copies of the external laws as we see them."

Froude, James A. on law and lawyers   

"An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so."

Gandhi, Mahatma on law and lawyers
12 fans of this quote   

"A fox may steal your hens, Sir, a whore your health and pence, Sir, your daughter rob your chest, Sir, your wife may steal your rest, Sir, a thief your goods and plate. But this is all but picking, with rest, pence, chest and chicken; it ever was decreed, Sir, if lawyer's hand is feed, Sir, he steals your whole estate."

Gay, John on law and lawyers   

"The laws of probability, so true in general, so fallacious in particular."

Gibbon, Edward on law and lawyers   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"Good laws make it easier to do right and harder to do wrong."

Gladstone, William E. on law and lawyers   

"We eagerly get hold of a law that serves as a weapon to our passions."

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von on law and lawyers   

"No great idea in its beginning can ever be within the law. How can it be within the law? The law is stationary. The law is fixed. The law is a chariot wheel which binds us all regardless of conditions or place or time."

Goldman, Emma on law and lawyers   

"The English laws punish vice; the Chinese laws do more, they reward virtue."

Goldsmith, Oliver on law and lawyers   

"Law grinds the poor, and rich men rule the law."

Goldsmith, Oliver on law and lawyers
5 fans of this quote   

"In a democracy -- even if it is a so-called democracy like our white-?litist one -- the greatest veneration one can show the rule of law is to keep a watch on it, and to reserve the right to judge unjust laws and the subversion of the function of the law by the power of the state. That vigilance is the most important proof of respect for the law."

Gordimer, Nadine on law and lawyers   

"I know of no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their strict execution."

Grant, Ulysses S. on law and lawyers   

"Christianity is part of the Common Law of England."

Hale, Matthew on law and lawyers   

This quotation can be viewed in the context of a book

"If the laws could speak for themselves, they would complain of the lawyers."

Halifax, Edward F. on law and lawyers
4 fans of this quote   

"The law is only one of several imperfect and more or less external ways of defending what is better in life against what is worse. By itself, the law can never create anything better. Establishing respect for the law does not automatically ensure a better life for that, after all, is a job for people and not for laws and institutions."

Havel, Vaclav on law and lawyers   

"Lawyers spend a great deal of their time shoveling smoke."

Holmes Jr., Oliver Wendell on law and lawyers   

"This is a court of law young man, not a court of justice."

Holmes, Oliver Wendell on law and lawyers
4 fans of this quote   

"The United States is the greatest law factory the world has ever known."

Hughes, Charles Evans on law and lawyers   

"We should have learnt by now that laws and court decisions can only point the way. They can establish criteria of right and wrong. And they can provide a basis for rooting out the evils of bigotry and racism. But they cannot wipe away centuries of oppression and injustice -- however much we might desire it."

Humphrey, Hubert H. on law and lawyers   

"Young lawyers attend the courts, not because they have business there, but because they have no business."

Irving, Washington on law and lawyers   

"Rulers were made to be broken."

Isenberg, Michael on law and lawyers   

"Certainly one of the highest duties of the citizen is a scrupulous obedience to the laws of the nation. But it is not the highest duty."

Jefferson, Thomas on law and lawyers   

"It is the trade of lawyers to question everything, yield nothing, and talk by the hour."

Jefferson, Thomas on law and lawyers
3 fans of this quote