Source: The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
Source: On Peace
“I am not the law, but I represent justice so far as my feeble powers go.”
“But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.”
Pt. VIII, ch. 13
Source: Anna Karenina (1875–1877; 1878)
Context: Reason has discovered the struggle for existence and the law that I must throttle all those who hinder the satisfaction of my desires. That is the deduction reason makes. But the law of loving others could not be discovered by reason, because it is unreasonable.
IV, 20
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book IV
“Protest beyond the law is not a departure from democracy; it is absolutely essential to it.”
Source: Some Assembly Required: A Journal of My Son's First Son
Variant: Two things fill the mind with ever-increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more intensely the mind of thought is drawn to them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
Source: Critique of Practical Reason (1788)
Context: Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above and the moral law within. I have not to search for them and conjecture them as though they were veiled in darkness or were in the transcendent region beyond my horizon; I see them before me and connect them directly with the consciousness of my existence. The former begins from the place I occupy in the external world of sense, and enlarges my connection therein to an unbounded extent with worlds upon worlds and systems of systems, and moreover into limitless times of their periodic motion, its beginning and continuance. The second begins from my invisible self, my personality, and exhibits me in a world which has true infinity, but which is traceable only by the understanding, and with which I discern that I am not in a merely contingent but in a universal and necessary connection, as I am also thereby with all those visible worlds. The former view of a countless multitude of worlds annihilates as it were my importance as an animal creature, which after it has been for a short time provided with vital power, one knows not how, must again give back the matter of which it was formed to the planet it inhabits (a mere speck in the universe). The second, on the contrary, infinitely elevates my worth as an intelligence by my personality, in which the moral law reveals to me a life independent of animality and even of the whole sensible world, at least so far as may be inferred from the destination assigned to my existence by this law, a destination not restricted to conditions and limits of this life, but reaching into the infinite.
Translated by Thomas Kingsmill Abbott
“The Law is annoying, but it is also flexible.”
Variant: The Law is hard, but it is the Law.
Source: Lady Midnight
Originally from Stuart Chase
Misattributed
Source: Lawe's Justice
“A prude is a person who thinks that his own rules of propriety are natural laws.”
Source: Callahan's Crosstime Saloon (1977) "Laws of Conservation of Pain and Joy"
The Devil's Dictionary (1911)
Source: The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary
Interview on CNBC http://www.cnbc.com/id/43670783 (1 July 2011)
Source: The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus
"Valentine's Day, that great state holiday" in The Boston Globe (14 February 2004) http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/02/14/valentines_day_that_great_state_holiday
Source: New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer
“Equal laws protecting equal rights…the best guarantee of loyalty and love of country.”
Letter to Jacob De La Motta (August 1820), Manuscript Division, Papers of James Madison http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/loc/madison.html
1820s
Context: Equal laws protecting equal rights, are found as they ought to be presumed, the best guarantee of loyalty, and love of country; as well as best calculated to cherish that mutual respect and good will among citizens of every religious denomination which are necessary to social harmony and most favorable to the advancement of truth.
Context: Among the features peculiar to the political system of the United States is the perfect equality of rights which it secures to every religious sect. And it is particularly pleasing to observe in the good citizenship of such as have been most distrusted and oppressed elsewhere, a happy illustration of the safety and success of this experiment of a just and benignant policy. Equal laws protecting equal rights, are found as they ought to be presumed, the best guarantee of loyalty, and love of country; as well as best calculated to cherish that mutual respect and good will among citizens of every religious denomination which are necessary to social harmony and most favorable to the advancement of truth.
“Prisons are built with stones of law; brothels with bricks of religion.”
Source: 1790s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790–1793), Proverbs of Hell, Line 21
“Lawyer – One skilled in the circumvention of the law.”
Existencilism (2002)
Source: Wall and Piece
“I thought grandmothers had to like you. It’s a law or something.”
Source: The Adoration of Jenna Fox
Source: Think and Grow Rich: The Landmark Bestseller - Now Revised and Updated for the 21st Century
“I abandon myself to the fever of dreams, in search for new laws.”
Source: The Luck of the Bodkins (1935)
“A mother-in-law dies only when another devil is needed in hell.”
Source: The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
“That's what law is: educated guesses at right and wrong.”
Source: Unwind
Source: The Conscience of a Liberal (2007), Ch. 13. The Conscience of a Liberal http://books.wwnorton.com/books/detail.aspx?ID=5887. W. W. Norton & Company. 352 pages ISBN 978-0-393-06069-0, 1st edition (2007)
Source: Anarchism and Other Essays
Source: Outwitting the Devil: The Secret to Freedom and Success
“The holy law of Jesus Christ governs our civilisation, but it does not yet permeate it.”
Source: Les Misérables
Source: Up From Slavery: An Autobiography
“If you want the law to leave you alone, keep your hair trimmed and your boots shined.”
Source: The Man Called Noon
Source: Letters of Swami Vivekananda
“Many a law, many a commandment have I broken, but my word never.”
“The Gospel does not abrogate God's law, but it makes men love it with all of their hearts.”
“Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!”
Act II; sometimes paraphrased as: The customs of your tribe are not laws of nature.
1890s, Caesar and Cleopatra (1898)
Variant: Pardon him, Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
Context: THEODOTUS: Caesar: you are a stranger here, and not conversant with our laws. The kings and queens of Egypt may not marry except with their own royal blood. Ptolemy and Cleopatra are born king and consort just as they are born brother and sister.
BRITANNUS (shocked): Caesar: this is not proper.
THEODOTUS (outraged): How!
CAESAR (recovering his self-possession): Pardon him, Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.
“There are times when the law jeopardizes those who obey it.”
Source: Pussy, King of the Pirates
Source: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times
“The mother of a trophy wife is not automatically a trophy mother-in-law.”
Source: The Appeal
Source: Mercury's War
“Sometimes the strength of motherhood is greater than natural laws.”
Source: Homeland and Other Stories
As quoted in Building a Life of Value : Timeless Wisdom to Inspire and Empower Us (2005) by Jason A. Merchey, p. 225
1960s, Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963)
Source: Letter from the Birmingham Jail
Context: One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."
Bryant v. Foot (1867), 15 W. R. 425; S. C. L. R. 2 Q. B. Ca. 179.
Travis Parker, Proloque, p. 3
2000s, The Choice (2007)
Speech at Catholic University, Columbus School of Law http://web.archive.org/web/20040704015129/http://www.law.cua.edu/News/Things%20That%20Never%20Were.cfm (2004).
2000s
1963, Address in the Assembly Hall at the Paulskirche in Frankfurt
Variant: Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.
Documents on International Affairs, 1963, Royal Institute of International Affairs, ed. Sir John Wheeler Wheeler-Bennett, p. 36.
