“Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.”

—  Oliver Goldsmith

Source: The Traveller (1764), Line 386.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law." by Oliver Goldsmith?
Oliver Goldsmith photo
Oliver Goldsmith 134
Irish physician and writer 1728–1774

Related quotes

Huey P. Newton photo

“Men were not created in order to obey laws. Laws are created to obey men. They are established by men and should serve men. The laws and rules which officials inflict upon poor people prevent them from functioning harmoniously in society. There is no disagreements about this function of law in any circle-the disagreement arises from the question of which men laws are to serve. Such lawmakers ignore the fact that it is the duty of the poor and unrepresented to construct rules and laws that serve their interest better. Rewriting unjust laws is a basic human right and fundamental obligation.”

Huey P. Newton (1942–1989) Co-founder of the Black Panther Party

"In Defense of Self-defense" I (June 20, 1967)
To Die For The People

Mateo Alemán photo

“Better a thrifty son-in-law and poor, than a glutton who is rich.”

Mateo Alemán book Guzmán de Alfarache

Pt. II, Lib. III, Ch. X.
Guzmán de Alfarache (1599-1604)

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse photo

“If there is one law for the Government and another for it's subjects, one for noble and another for commoner, one for rich and another for poor, the law does not guarantee liberty for all.”

Leonard Trelawny Hobhouse (1864–1929) British sociologist

Source: Liberalism (1911), Chapter II, The Elements of Liberalism, p. 17.

“The controversy between rule of law and rule of men was never relevant to women — because, along with juveniles, imbeciles, and other classes of legal nonpersons, they had no access to law except through men.”

Freda Adler (1934) Criminologist, educator

Source: Sisters in Crime: The Rise of the New Female Criminal (1975), P. 203.

Barrett Brown photo

“This is not the “rule of law”…it is the “rule of law enforcement.””

Barrett Brown (1981) American journalist, essayist and satirist

The Guardian, "Barrett Brown statement: 'This is not the rule of law, it is the rule of law enforcement'" http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/22/barrett-brown-hacking-sentencing-full-statement-text, 22 January 2015.

Jo Walton photo

“There is one law for rich and poor alike, which prevents them equally from stealing bread and sleeping under bridges.”

Jo Walton book Farthing

Cf. Anatole France, Le Lys Rouge [The Red Lily] (1894), ch. 7: La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain. (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.)
Source: Farthing (2006), Chapter 18

Ilana Mercer photo

“Democrats demonstrate daily that they’re not for the rule of law, but for the law of rule, mob rule.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"The Party of Man-Haters," https://townhall.com/columnists/ilanamercer/2018/10/19/the-party-of-manhaters-n2530054 Townhall.com, October 19, 2018
2010s, 2018

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo

“Law and order are the privilege of the poor. So far as they affect the rich they are the restraint of the rich. It is for all those who are interested in the industry and commerce of this country, not for those who are interested merely in fixed capital and the leisurely enjoyment of its fruits, to struggle to maintain the idea of the supremacy of the law.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Speech to the Conference of the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations in Oxford (23 November 1887), quoted in The Times (24 November 1887), p. 7
1880s

Anatole France photo

“In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain.
Le Lys Rouge http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Le_Lys_rouge/VII [The Red Lily] (1894), ch. 7
Variant: 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.

“Although many laws perpetuate advantages gained by antecendent violence and apply unequally to rich and poor, and although most are outwardly prohibitive and therefore negative, they rest on the positive basis of the will of most men to live peacefully together.”

Giovanni Baldelli (1914–1986) Anarchist theorist

Source: Social Anarchism (1971), p. 14

Related topics