“The will of the people is the best law.”

As quoted in The Lonely Quest: The Evolution of Presidential Leadership (1966) by Robert Rienow, Leona Train Rienow, p. 209.

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 "The will of the people is the best law." by Ulysses S. Grant?
Ulysses S. Grant photo
Ulysses S. Grant 177
18th President of the United States 1822–1885

Related quotes

Joni Madraiwiwi photo

“Ultimately, the best guarantor of the rule of law is not the state and the branches which comprise it but the recognition by people of its value and their willingness to fight for, and uphold it.”

Joni Madraiwiwi (1957–2016) Fijian politician

Siwati Memorial Lecture, Honiara, Solomon Islands, 24 September 2004 http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0409/S00253.htm.

Wendell Phillips photo

“The best use of laws is to teach men to trample bad laws under their feet.”

Wendell Phillips (1811–1884) American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator and lawyer

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

Lewis Morris (poet) photo

“Toil is the law of life and its best fruit.”

Lewis Morris (poet) (1833–1907) Welsh poet in the English language

The Ode of perfect Years, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Abraham Lincoln photo

“The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

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

Alexis De Tocqueville photo

“The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage.”

Alexis De Tocqueville (1805–1859) French political thinker and historian

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.

Theodore Roosevelt photo
Brian W. Aldiss photo

“Aldiss’s second law of thermo-linguistics states that what is most popular is rarely best and that what is best is rarely most popular.”

Brian W. Aldiss (1925–2017) British science fiction author

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

Huey P. Newton photo

“Laws should be made to serve the people. People should not be made to serve the laws.”

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

Source: To Die for the People: The Writings of Huey P. Newton

Donald J. Trump photo

“I surround myself with the best people. I know the best people.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

On an interview (1999 November 26)
1990s

Norman Vincent Peale photo

Related topics