“What is law? Is it what is on the books, or what is actually enacted and obeyed in a society? Or is law what must be enacted and obeyed, whether or not it is on the books, if things are to go right?”

— Bernhard Schlink , book The Reader

Source: The Reader

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Bernhard Schlink 17

German writer 1944

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Address to the AFL Convention in New York City, transcribed in the New York Times, September 23, 1952. In context, Stevenson was saying that the Republicans were humorless, in contrast to his own sense of humor. This quote resembles the unsourced and confusing version, "I refuse to personally criticize President Eisenhower, I will not submit to the Republican concept of gravity."