“The purposeful many need not and will not bow to the willful few.”
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) American politician, 36th president of the United States (in office from 1963 to 1969)
1960s, Special message to Congress on the right to vote (1965)
“They have but few laws, and such is their constitution that they need not many.”
— Thomas More, book Utopia
Source: Utopia (1516), Ch. 7 : Of Their Slaves, and of Their Marriages
Context: They have but few laws, and such is their constitution that they need not many. They very much condemn other nations whose laws, together with the commentaries on them, swell up to so many volumes; for they think it an unreasonable thing to oblige men to obey a body of laws that are both of such a bulk, and so dark as not to be read and understood by every one of the subjects.
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Do you have more details about the quote "They have but few laws, and such is their constitution that they need not many." by Thomas More?
Thomas More26
English Renaissance humanist 1478–1535Related quotes
Robert H. Jackson (1892–1954) American judge
Douglas v. Jeannette, 319 U.S. 157, 181 (1943)
Judicial opinions
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) 32nd President of the United States
1930s, Message to Congress on Tax Revision (1935)
Context: The Joint Legislative Committee, established by the Revenue Act of 1926, has been particularly helpful to the Treasury Department. The members of that Committee have generously consulted with administrative officials, not only on broad questions of policy but on important and difficult tax cases. On the basis of these studies and of other studies conducted by officials of the Treasury, I am able to make a number of suggestions of important changes in our policy of taxation. These are based on the broad principle that if a government is to be prudent its taxes must produce ample revenues without discouraging enterprise; and if it is to be just it must distribute the burden of taxes equitably. I do not believe that our present system of taxation completely meets this test. Our revenue laws have operated in many ways to the unfair advantage of the few, and they have done little to prevent an unjust concentration of wealth and economic power.
Brian Leiter (1963) American philosopher and legal scholar
"The Hermeneutics of Suspicion: Recovering Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud"
Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist
Letter to Robert Applegarth (3 December 1869) <br class="br">Source: The Abolition of Landed Property http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1869/12/03.htm (3 December 1869)
Al Franken (1951) American comedian and politician
"Privacy and Civil Liberties in the Digital Age" in WIRED (2 March 2012) http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/03/opinion-franken-privacyliberties/
Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer
The trial of Charles B. Reynolds for blasphemy (1887)
Context: There is a constitution higher than any statute. There is a law higher than any constitution. It is the law of the human conscience, and no man who is a man will defile and pollute his conscience at the bidding of any legislature. Above all things, one should maintain his self-respect, and there is but one way to do that, and that is to live in accordance with your highest ideal.
John Marshall (1755–1835) fourth Chief Justice of the United States
5. U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 180
Marbury v. Madison (1803)
Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America
2010s, 2016, September, First presidential debate (September 26, 2016)
John Marshall (1755–1835) fourth Chief Justice of the United States
17 U.S. (4 Wheaton) 316, 426
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)
Context: This great principle is that the Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof are supreme; that they control the Constitution and laws of the respective States, and cannot be controlled by them. From this, which may be almost termed an axiom, other propositions are deduced as corollaries, on the truth or error of which, and on their application to this case, the cause has been supposed to depend. These are, 1st. That a power to create implies a power to preserve; 2d. That a power to destroy, if wielded by a different hand, is hostile to, and incompatible with these powers to create and to preserve; 3d. That, where this repugnancy exists, that authority which is supreme must control, not yield to that over which it is supreme.