
Siwati Memorial Lecture, Honiara, Solomon Islands, 24 September 2004 http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0409/S00253.htm.
As quoted in The Lonely Quest: The Evolution of Presidential Leadership (1966) by Robert Rienow, Leona Train Rienow, p. 209.
Siwati Memorial Lecture, Honiara, Solomon Islands, 24 September 2004 http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0409/S00253.htm.
“The best use of laws is to teach men to trample bad laws under their feet.”
Speech at the Melodeon, on the first anniversary of the rendition of Thomas Sims (12 April 12 1852), published in Speeches, Letters and Lectures by Wendell Phillips https://archive.org/details/speecheslectures7056phil (1884), p. 91.
1850s
“Toil is the law of life and its best fruit.”
The Ode of perfect Years, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it.”
Attributed in A Dictionary of Thoughts (1908) by Tryon Edwards; this is earlier attributed to Theodore Roosevelt in Life of William McKinley (1901) by Samuel Fallows, and could be derived from the remarks of Ulysses S. Grant in his First Inaugural Address (4 March 1869): "I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution".
Misattributed
De la supériorité des mœurs sur les lois (1831) Oeuvres complètes, vol. VIII, p. 286 https://books.google.de/books?id=yrMFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA286&dq=meilleures.
Original text:
Les meilleures lois ne peuvent faire marcher une constitution en dépit des mœurs ; les mœurs tirent parti des pires lois. C'est là une vérité commune, mais à laquelle mes études me ramènent sans cesse. Elle est placée dans mon esprit comme un point central. Je l'aperçois au bout de toutes mes idées.
1830s
Context: The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.
1900s, The Strenuous Life: Essays and Addresses (1900), National Duties
Science Fiction on the Titanic, in Brian Aldiss and Harry Harrison (eds.) The Year's Best SF 9 (1976), ISBN 0-8600-7894-9, p. 201
“Laws should be made to serve the people. People should not be made to serve the laws.”
Source: To Die for the People: The Writings of Huey P. Newton
“I surround myself with the best people. I know the best people.”
On an interview (1999 November 26)
1990s