Law Quotes - Page 34

• The one thing that cannot be outsourced is creativity. We have to find ways to support creative people because the only way we are going to improve our laws... is by creating our way out of it.

  Adam Leipzig

  Creativity, Creating, People

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• The law is like rope...useful, necessary, strong, but it can be bent and twisted into all kinds of shapes depending on the occasion.

  W. P. Kinsella

  Strong, Rope, Shapes

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• There never was a law yet made, I conceive, that hit the taste exactly of every man, or every part of the community; of course, if this be a reason for opposition, no law can be executed at all without force, and every man or set of men will in that case cut and carve for themselves; the consequences of which must be deprecated by all classes of men, who are friends to order, and to the peace and happiness of the country.

  George Washington

  Country, Cutting, Men

  George Washington, Jared Sparks (1847). “The Writings of George Washington: pt. IV. Letters official and private, from the beginning of his presidency to the end of his life: (v. 10) May, 1789-November, 1794. (v. 11) November, 1794-December, 1799”, p.440

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• It is a noteworthy fact that not one of the women to whom I have spoken so far believes in abortion as a practice; but it is principle for which they are standing. They also believe that the complete abolition of the abortion law will shortly do away with abortions, as nothing else will.

  Margaret Sanger

  Believe, Practice, Abortion

  Margaret Sanger (2016). “The Selected Papers of Margaret Sanger, Volume 4: Round the World for Birth Control, 1920-1966”, p.50, University of Illinois Press

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• Yesterday woman was a chattel. Now she is, in law, a minor. Tomorrow she will be free, or partially so--that is to say, as free as man.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Women, Yesterday, Tomorrow

  Harry Persons Taber, Elbert Hubbard (1914). “The Philistine”

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• I do not believe it is the function of the judiciary to step in and change the law because the times have changed. I do well understand the difference between legislating and judging. As a judge, it is not my function to develop public policy.

  Sandra Day O'Connor

  Believe, Times Have Changed, Differences

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• The walking delegates of a higher civilization, who have nothing to divide, look upon the notion of property as a purely artificial creation of human society. According to these advanced philosophers, the time will come when no man shall be allowed to call anything his. The beneficent law which takes away an author's rights in his own books just at the period when old age is creeping upon him seems to me a handsome stride toward the longed-for millennium.

  Thomas Bailey Aldrich

  Book, Men, Rights

  THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH (1903). “PONKAPOG PAPERS”

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• The old laws of England they Whose reverend heads with age are gray, Children of a wiser day; And whose solemn voice must be Thine own echo Liberty!

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Children, Echoes, Voice

  Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin Shelley (1855). “The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley: In Three Volumes”, p.431

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• With kings, nations, and private individuals, the strongest assume to themselves rights over the weakest, and the same rule is followed by animals, by matter, by the elements, so that everything is performed in the universe by violence. And that order which we blame with some appearance of justice is the most universal, most absolute, most unchangeable, and most ancient law of nature.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Kings, Animal, Rights

  Jean de La Bruyère, Luc de Clapiers marquis de Vauvenargues (1903). “La Bruyère and Vauvenargues: Selections from the Characters, Reflexions and Maxims”

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• No one ever wrote a story yet without some real emotional drive behind it--and I have not that drive except where violations of the natural order ... defiances and evasions of time, space, and cosmic law ... are concerned.

  H. P. Lovecraft

  Real, Emotional, Order

  H. P. Lovecraft, August Derleth, James Turner (1976). “Selected Letters 1934-1937”, Arkham House Publishers

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• It is futile to fight against, if one does not know what one is fighting for.

  Ayn Rand

  Peace, Truth, Freedom

  Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Alan Greenspan, Robert Hessen (1986). “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal”, p.224, Penguin

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• I know so well what becomes of unmarried women who aren't prepared to occupy a position. I've seen such pitiful cases in the South barely tolerated spinsters living upon the grudging patronage of sister's husband or brother's wife! stuck away in some little mouse-trap of a room encouraged by one in-law to visit another little birdlike women without any nest eating the crust of humility all their life! Is that the future that we've mapped out for ourselves?

  Tennessee Williams

  Brother, Husband, Humility

  Tennessee Williams (1996). “The Glass Menagerie”, p.12, Heinemann

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• I examined my Liberalism and found it like an addiction to roulette. Here, though the odds are plain, and the certainty of loss apparent to anyone with a knowledge of arithmetic, the addict, failing time and again, is convinced he yet is graced with the power to contravene natural laws. The roulette addict, when he invariably comes to grief, does not examine either the nature of roulette, or of his delusion, but retires to develop a new system, and to scheme for more funds.

  David Mamet

  Grief, Loss, Odds

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• There was one person who greatly and directly benefited my career--my agent Virginia Kidd. From 1968 to the late nineties she represented all my work, in every field except poetry. I could send her an utterly indescribable story, and she'd sell it to Playboy or the Harvard Law Review or Weird Tales or The New Yorker--she knew where to take it. She never told me what to write or not write, she never told me, That won't sell, and she never meddled with my prose.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Writing, Careers, Virginia

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• Those who live not by law would be justified by Custom: but, as common practice is the worst teacher that ever was, so the truth and goodness of things is not to be estimated by the entertainment and acceptance they find in the world.

  Benjamin Whichcote

  Teacher, Acceptance, Practice

  Benjamin Whichcote, Anthony Tuckney (1753). “Moral and religious aphorisms [collected by J. Jeffery from the papers of B. Whichcote]. Now re-publ., with additions, by S. Salter. To which are added, Eight letters: which passed between dr. Whichcote, and dr. Tuckney”, p.55

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• Such an explication of Grace as sets men at liberty in morals, makes void the Law through Faith.

  Benjamin Whichcote

  Men, Grace, Liberty

  Benjamin Whichcote (1753). “Moral and religious aphorisms collected from the manuscript papers of the reverend and learned Doctor Whichcote; and published in 1703, by Dr. Jeffery. Now re-published, with very large additions, ... by Samuel Salter, ... To which are added, Eight letter”, p.111

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• For example: (1) As if governed by Newton's First Law of Motion, an institution will resist any change in its current direction; (2) Just as work expands to fill available time, corporate projects or acquisitions will materialize to soak up available funds; (3) Any business craving of the leader, however foolish, will be quickly supported by detailed rate-of-return and strategic studies prepared by his troops; and (4) The behavior of peer companies, whether they are expanding, acquiring, setting executive compensation or whatever, will be mindlessly imitated.

  Warren Buffett

  Leader, Peers, Firsts

  Warren Buffett (2009). “Warren Buffett on Business: Principles from the Sage of Omaha”, p.151, John Wiley & Sons

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• Our whole life can go on in observation of the laws of nature, if we gain dominion over our desires from the beginning and if we do not kill, by various means of a perverse art, the human offspring, born according to the designs of divine providence; for these women who, in order to hide their immorality, use abortive drugs which expel the child completely dead, abort at the same time their own human feelings.

  Clement of Alexandria

  Art, Children, Mean

  "Paedagogus 2". Book by Clement of Alexandria, (circa 210).

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• To summarize: Americans have one of the greatest legal systems, but not a monopoly of the sense of justice, which is universal; nor have we a permanent copyright on the means of securing justice, for it is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive.

  Earl Warren

  Mean, Justice, Legal System

  Earl Warren (1959). “The Public Papers of Chief Justice Earl Warren”

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• Thus, if there exists a law which sanctions slavery or monopoly, oppression or robbery, in any form whatever, it must not even be mentioned. For how can it be mentioned without damaging the respect which it inspires? Still further, morality and political economy must be taught from the point of view of this law; from the supposition that it must be a just law merely because it is a law. Another effect of this tragic perversion of the law is that it gives an exaggerated importance to political passions and conflicts, and to politics in general.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Passion, Views, Giving

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• Principle II: The presumptions of the law are creative presumptions:;: they are aimed at conditions to be brought about, and only for that reason ignore conditions which exist.

  William Ernest Hocking

  Creative, Principles, Reason

  "Present Status of the Philosophy of Law and of Rights". Book by William Ernest Hocking, Ch. VI : Presumptive Rights, § 24, p. 62, 1926.

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• The 'nations,' as they are called, with whom our pretended ambassadors, secretaries, presidents, and senators profess to make treaties, are as much myths as our own. On general principles of law and reason, there are no such 'nations.' ... Our pretended treaties, then, being made with no legitimate or bona fide nations, or representatives of nations, and being made, on our part, by persons who have no legitimate authority to act for us, have intrinsically no more validity than a pretended treaty made by the Man in the Moon with the king of the Pleiades.

  Lysander Spooner

  Kings, Moon, Men

  Lysander Spooner (1971). “The collected works of Lysander Spooner”

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• Neither federal nor state government acts compatibly with equal protection when a law or official policy denies to women, simply because they are women, full citizenship stature - equal opportunity to aspire, achieve, participate in and contribute to society based on their individual talents and capacities.

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg

  Opportunity, Government, Individual Talent

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg (2016). “My Own Words”, p.348, Simon and Schuster

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• Law, the king of all mortals and immortals.

  Pindar

  Kings, Mortals

  "Gorgias" by Plato, 484b,

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• Courts are the mere instruments of the law, and can will nothing. When they are said to exercise a discretion, it is a mere legal discretion, a discretion to be exercised in discerning the course prescribed by law; and, when that is discerned, it is the duty of the Court to follow it. Judicial power is never exericised for the purpose of giving effect to the will of the Judge; always for the purpose of giving effect to the will of the Legislature; or, in other words, to the will of the law.

  John Marshall

  Exercise, Judging, Giving

  Osborn v. Bank of the United States, 22 U.S. (9 Wheaton) 738, 866, 1824.

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