It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive. ~Earl Warren
Justice is the tolerable accommodation of the conflicting interests of society, and I don't believe there is any royal road to attain such accommodation concretely. ~Judge Learned Hand, in P. Hamburger, The Great Judge, 1946
When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty. ~Norm Crosby
Justice may be blind, but she has very sophisticated listening devices. ~Edgar Argo
Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers. ~Erik Pepke
If the laws could speak for themselves, they would complain of the lawyers in the first place. ~Lord Halifax
Hunger makes a thief of any man. ~Pearl S. Buck, quoted in You Said a Mouthful, edited by Ronald D. Fuchs
Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny. ~Edmund Burke
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
In keeping people straight, principle is not as powerful as a policeman. ~Abel Hermant, Le Bourgeois, 1906
When there's a single thief, it's robbery. When there are a thousand thieves, it's taxation. ~Vanya Cohen
We don't give our criminals much punishment, but we sure give 'em plenty of publicity. ~Will Rogers
Only the man who has enough good in him to feel the justice of the penalty can be punished. ~William Ernest Hocking
Capital punishment is as fundamentally wrong as a cure for crime as charity is wrong as a cure for poverty. ~Henry Ford
Poverty is the mother of crime. ~Marcus Aurelius
It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do. ~Edmund Burke, Second Speech on Conciliation, 1775
Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. ~Louis D. Brandeis
Capital punishment turns the state into a murderer. But imprisonment turns the state into a gay dungeon-master. ~Jesse Jackson
Injustice is relatively easy to bear; it is justice that hurts. ~H.L. Mencken
War makes thieves and peace hangs them. ~George Herbert
Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate. ~Bertrand Russell, Look, 195
Law is nothing unless close behind it stands a warm living public opinion. ~Wendell Phillips
Men are too unstable to be just; they are crabbed because they have not passed water at the usual time, or testy because they have not been stroked or praised. ~Edward Dahlberg, The Sorrows of Priapus, 1957
Law is not justice and a trial is not a scientific inquiry into truth. A trial is the resolution of a dispute. ~Edison Haines
It is easier to commit murder than to justify it. ~Aemilius Papinianus
The greater the number of laws and enactments, the more thieves and robbers there will be. ~Lao-tzu
Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught. ~Honoré de Balzac
We don't seem to be able to check crime, so why not legalize it and then tax it out of business? ~Will Rogers
A lawyer is a gentleman who rescues your estate from your enemies and keeps it for himself. ~Lord Brougham
Rather let the crime of the guilty go unpunished than condemn the innocent. ~Justinian I, Law Code, A.D. 53
Thieves for their robbery have authority
When judges steal themselves.
~William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure
The law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics. ~Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., The Common Law
It is well-nigh obvious that those who are in favor of the death penalty have more affinities with murderers than those who oppose it. ~Remy de Gourmont
It is hard to say whether doctors of law or divinity have made the greater advances in the lucrative business of mystery. ~Edmund Burke
Having your fate rest in the hands of a jury is the same as entrusting yourself to surgery with a mentally retarded doctor. ~Bill Messing, quoted in Dream World, by Fred Woodworth
The law condemns and punishes only actions within certain definite and narrow limits; it thereby justifies, in a way, all similar actions that lie outside those limits. ~Leo Tolstoy, What I Believe
|
