Quotes about laws (6497 quotes, page 31)

“The law,” Hoess suggested, “might not be entirely unhelpful here.”

Michael Swanwick book Jack Faust

Source: Jack Faust (1997), Chapter 13, “Tabloids” (p. 214)

“Protocols:
Number 1, paras. 11,12,13,14
The political has nothing in common with the moral.
The word “right is an abstract thought and proved by nothing.
Where does right begin? Where does it end?
In any State in which there is a bad organization of authority, an impersonality of laws and of the rights over multiplying out of liberalism, I find a new right to attack by the right of the strong, and to scatter to the winds all existing forces of order and regulation, to reconstruct all institutions and to become sovereign lord of those who have left to us the rights of their power by laying them down voluntarily in their liberalism.”

Will Eisner (1917–2005) American cartoonist

The Plot: The Secret Story of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion (10/2/2005)

Strong

“We arrive at a portrayal of other things, such as the laws governing matter. These are the great generalities – Which do not change.”

Piet Mondrian (1872–1944) Peintre Néerlandais

note in Mondrian's sketchbook II, 1912/13; as quoted in Two Mondrian sketchbooks 1912 - 1914, ed. Robert P. Welsh & J. M. Joosten, Amsterdam 1969 op. cit. (note 31), p. 61
1910's

Change

“And he that gives us in these days
New Lords may give us new laws.”

George Wither (1588–1667) English poet

Contented Man’s Morrice; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

“It's about time law enforcement got as organized as organized crime.”

Rudy Giuliani (1944–2001) American businessperson and politician, former mayor of New York City

Quoted in TIME Magazine, October 15, 1984. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,923697-8,00.html

Time

“The Christians mistake an incident for a cause, and honestly imagine that the Bible is the foundation of modern liberty and law. They forget physical conditions, make no account of commerce, care nothing for inventions and discoveries, and ignorantly give the credit to their inspired book.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Orthodoxy (1884)

Books , Imagination , Forgetting

“Government creates the market and law. Law is not the negation of liberty; it is its fulfillment. Right law is not a restriction on people’s liberty; it makes their freedom possible. Right law is liberty; liberty is right law.”

Alan O. Ebenstein (1959) American political scientist, educator and author

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

People , Freedom

“We have people coming in by the millions…Am I absolutely opposed to immigration? No…We have to find a way to believe in the rule of law, believe in border control and at the same time, not villify the issue.”

Rand Paul (1963) American politician, ophthalmologist, and United States Senator from Kentucky

Speaking in Paducah, 2009-05-09
Rand Paul set to launch Senate campaign
KY Wordsmith
http://kywordsmith.com/#/rand-paul-issues/4533680792
2010-11-17
2000s

People , Way , Time

“Obtain power, then, by all means; power is the law of man; make it yours.”

Maria Edgeworth (1768–1849) Irish writer

"An Essay on the Noble Science of Self-Justification" (1795); Tales and Novels, vol. 1, p. 206.

“I believe in Spinoza's God, who reveals himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns himself with the fate and the doings of mankind.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Albert Einstein, in response to the telegrammed question of New York's Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein in (24 April 1929) ; he later expanded on his comments about Spinoza's and his own ideas on religion elsewhere : "I can understand your aversion to the use of the term "religion" to describe an emotional and psychological attitude which shows itself most clearly in Spinoza … I have not found a better expression than "religious" for the trust in the rational nature of reality that is, at least to a certain extent, accessible to human reason." — as quoted in Einstein : Science and Religion by Arnold V. Lesikar
A - F

God , Fate , World

“… it is precisely because it is not a democracy that China will likely be so successful…What is of vital importance for economic success is economic freedom, meaning the protection of private property, the rule of law, and minimal regulation and taxation, not the right to vote.”

Peter D. Schiff (1963) American entrepreneur, economist and author

Quotes from Crash Proof (2006)

Democracy , Freedom , Success

“Over the next 40 years, he rose to lead that department. Pop was the tall, strong, silent type, quiet and dignified, and passionate about the rule of law. Back during Prohibition, he heard that bootleggers were running beer through fire hoses between Yonkers and the Bronx.”

James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

Beer , Strong , Passion

“I hope none who hear me will confound this expression of mine with advocacy of the right of a state to remain in the Union, and to disregard its constitutional obligations by the nullification of the law. Such is not my theory. Nullification and secession, so often confounded, are indeed antagonistic principles. Nullification is a remedy which it is sought to apply within the Union, and against the agent of states. It is only to be justified when the agent has violated his constitutional obligation, and a state, assuming to judge for itself, denies the right of the agent thus to act, and appeals to the other states of the Union for a decision; but when the states themselves, and when the people of the states, have so acted as to convince us that they will not regard our constitutional rights, then, and then for the first time, arises the doctrine of secession in its practical application.”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

1860s, Speech before the U.S. Senate (1861)

People , Hope , Decision , Time

“It is only within the framework of an independent ideological state built on the principles of Islam and endowed with all the machinery of government, legislation, and law-enforcement that the ideals of Islam can be brought to practical fruition.”

Muhammad Asad book The Principles of State and Government in Islam

Source: The Principles of State and Government in Islam (1961), Chapter 6: Conclusion, p 96

“We don't pay judges to think; we pay judges to rule on the law.”

Jeff Sessions (1946) Former United States Attorney General

Regarding judicial activism while debating on the Senate floor on 06 June 2005 regarding the nomination of Janice Rogers Brown to the federal judiciary.
Attributed

Thinking

“The three laws of behavioral genetics may be the most important discoveries in the history of psychology. Yet most psychologists have not come to grips with them, and most intellectuals do not understand them …. Here are the three laws:”

Steven Pinker book The Blank Slate

The First Law. All human behavioral traits are heritable.
The Second Law. The effect of being raised in the same family is smaller than the effect of genes.
The Third Law. A substantial portion of the variation in complex human behavioral traits is not accounted for by the effects of genes or families.
Kindle locations 8005, 8010.
The Blank Slate (2002)

Behavior , History , Understanding

“It seems a mad business to confront these dictators without weapons or military force, and at the same time try to tame and cow the spirit of our people with peace films, anti-recruiting propaganda and resistance to defence measures. Unless the free and law-respecting nations are prepared to organise, arm and combine, they are going to be smashed up. This is going to happen quite soon. But I believe we still have a year to combine and marshal superior forces in defence of the League and its Covenant.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to Robert Cecil (9 April 1936), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 722
The 1930s

People , Peace , Business , Time

“In the main, the theme is emerging of the growth of freedom and law, of the rights of the individual, of the subordination of the State to the fundamental and moral conceptions of an ever-comprehending community. Of these ideas the English-speaking peoples were the authors, then the trustees, and must now become the armed champions. Thus I condemn tyranny in whatever guise and from whatever quarter it presents itself. All this of course has a current application.”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Letter to Maurice Ashley (12 April 1939) on his work on A History of the English Speaking Peoples, quoted in Martin Gilbert, Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939 (London: Minerva, 1990), p. 1063
The 1930s

People , Communication , Idea , Freedom

“It is better that the law should be certain than that every judge should speculate upon improvements in it.”

John Scott (1751–1838) British barrister and politician, born 1751

Sheldon v. Goodrich, 8 Ves. 481, 497 (1803)

“The child who has been taught to realise the claims that God's lower creatures have upon him, whose heart has been touched by lessons of kindness and mercy, under their sweet influence will grow to be a large-hearted, tender-hearted, manly man. Then let the children be trained, their hands, their intellects, and above all their hearts. Let them be taught to have pity for the animals that are at our mercy, that cannot protect themselves, that cannot explain their weakness, their pain, or their suffering, and soon this will bring to their recognition that higher law, the moral obligation of man as a superior being to protect and care for the weak and defenceless. Nor will it stop here, for this in turn will lead them to that highest law—man's duty to man.”

Ralph Waldo Trine (1866–1958) American author

Source: Every Living Creature (1899), p. 8

God , Pain , Children , Suffering

“In your number of March 3rd [1860] I observe a long quotation from The Times, stating that Mr. Darwin "professes to have discovered the existence and modus operandi of the natural law of selection," that is, "the power in nature which takes the place of man and performs a selection, sua sponte," in organic life. This discovery recently published as "the results of 20 years' investigation and reflection" by Mr. Darwin turns out to be what I published very fully and brought to apply practically to forestry in my work Naval Timber and Arboriculture, published as far back as January 1, 1831, by Adam & Charles Black, Edinburgh, and Longman & Co., London, and reviewed in numerous periodicals, so as to have full publicity in the "Metropolitan Magazine," the "Quarterly Review," the "Gardeners' Magazine," by Loudon… and repeatedly in the "United Service Magazine" for 1831, &c. The following is an extract from this volume, which clearly proves a prior claim.”

Patrick Matthew (1790–1874) British scientist

excerpt follows
Gardeners' Chronicle

Life , Nature , Time

“Of course politics is an interesting and engrossing thing. It offers no immutable laws, nearly always prevaricates, but as far as blather and sharpening the mind go, it provides inexhaustible material.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Letter to A.S. Suvorin (January 4, 1889)
Letters

“If ghosts and witches are not yet altogether exploded, it is the fault, not so much of the ignorant people, as of the law and the government that have neglected to enlighten them.”

Mordechai Ben-Ari (1948) Israeli computer scientist

Source: Just a Theory: Exploring the Nature of Science (2005), Chapter 5, “Pseudoscience: What Some People Do Isn’t Science” (p. 96; quoting Charles Mackay)

People

“A Chinaman can ride in the same passenger coach with white citizens of the United States, while citizens of the black race in Louisiana, many of whom, perhaps, risked their lives for the preservation of the Union, who are entitled, by law, to participate in the political control of the State and nation, who are not excluded, by law or by reason of their race, from public stations of any kind, and who have all the legal rights that belong to white citizens, are yet declared to be criminals, liable to imprisonment, if they ride in a public coach occupied by citizens of the white race. He does not object, nor, perhaps, would he object to separate coaches for his race if his rights under the law were recognized. But he objecting, and ought never to cease objecting, to the proposition that citizens of the white and black race can be adjudged criminals because they sit, or claim the right to sit, in the same public coach on a public highway.”

John Marshall Harlan (1833–1911) United States Union Army officer and Supreme Court Associate Justice

1890s, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896)

“It is a rule that those who come into a Court of justice to seek redress, must come with clean hands, and must disclose a transaction warranted by law.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

Petrie v. Hannay (1789), 3 T. R. 422.

Justice

“The ultimate goal is not life. It is resurrection. The resurrection of nations in the name of Jesus Christ the Savior. Creation and culture are only means--not the purpose--of resurrection. Culture is the fruit of talent, which God implanted in our nation and for which we are responsible. A time will come when all the world's nations will arise from the dead, with all their dead, with all their kings and emperors. Every nation has its place before God's throne. That final moment, "resurrection from the dead," is the highest and most sublime goal for which a nation can strive. The nation is thus an entity that lives even beyond this earth. Nations are realities also in the other world, not only on this one. To us Rumanians, to our nation, as to every nation in the world, God assigned a specific mission; God has given us a historical destiny. The first law that every nation must abide by is that of attaining that destiny, of fulfilling the mission entrusted to it.”

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (1899–1938) Romanian politician

For My Legionaries: The Iron Guard (1936), Nation and Culture

Life , God , World , Reality

“These trends have given rise to a despairing attitude among those who see the political implications of demographic trends. The best and brightest families-those who will never be on welfare, who are owners and bequestors of capital, who have the willingness to be risk takers and who serve as the political backbone of the ‘free society have been outbred by people who exhibit fewer of these traits. Making matters worse, immigration law has been biased in favor of the latter, not the former, group.”

Jeffrey Tucker (1963) American writer

Source: ""Trophy Kids"" by Jeffrey Tucker, The Rothbard-Rockwell Report, October 1997, UNZ.org, 2016-05-22 http://www.unz.org/Pub/RothbardRockwellReport-1997oct-00008,

People , Family , Despair

“The division of the world into two mutually exclusive camps - the City of War and the City of Faith - lies at the heart of Islam's traditional view of existence. Places where Islam rules supreme and its laws are strictly obeyed are known as Dar al-Iman or the City of Faith. The rest of the world is signified under the title of Dar al-Harb or the City of War.”

Amir Taheri (1942) Iranian journalist

Holy Terror: The inside story of Islamic terrorism (1987)

War , World , Faith , Heart

“They knew, however, that self-government is still government, and that the authority of the Constitution and the law is still authority. They knew that a government without power is a contradiction in terms. In order that their President and their Congress might not surpass the bounds of the authority granted to them, by the Constitution which the people had made, and so infringe upon the liberties of the people, they established a third independent department of the government, with the power to interpret and declare the Constitution and the law, the inferior courts and the Supreme Court of the United States. No President, however powerful, and no majority of Congress however large, can take from an individual, no matter how humble, that freedom and those rights which are guaranteed to him by the Constitution. The Supreme Court has final authority to determine all questions arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Ordered Liberty and World Peace (1924)

People , Question , Freedom

“Where there's a will, there's a law suit.”

Addison Mizner (1872–1933) American architect

The Cynic's Calendar

“I believe that animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number.

Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype. But analogy may be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless all living things have much in common, in their chemical composition, their germinal vesicles, their cellular structure, and their laws of growth and reproduction. We see this even in so trifling a circumstance as that the same poison often similarly affects plants and animals; or that the poison secreted by the gall-fly produces monstrous growths on the wild rose or oak-tree. Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed by the Creator.”

Charles Darwin book On the Origin of Species (1859)

Source: On the Origin of Species (1859), chapter XIV: "Recapitulation and Conclusion", page 484 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=505&itemID=F376&viewtype=side, in the second (1860) edition

Life , Secret , Tree , Animals

“[V]oluntary exchange among individuals held morally responsible under the rule of law creates both prosperity and an unparalleled diversity of human choices. Such a model also has been a precondition of individuation and freedom. By contrast, regimes of central planning create poverty and occasion ineluctable developments toward totalitarianism and the worst abuses of power. Dynamic free-market societies, grounded in rights-based individualism, have altered the entire human conception of liberty and of dignity for formerly marginalized groups. The entire "socialist experiment," by contrast, ended in stasis; ethnic hatreds; the absence of even the minimal preconditions of economic, social, and political renewal; and categorical contempt for both individuation and minority rights. Our children do not know this true comparison.”

Alan Charles Kors (1943) American academic

2000s, Can There Be an "After Socialism"? (2003)

Children , Freedom

““Your concept is a tremendous network of inconsistencies.”
“In what way?” the countess said, not very much interested.
“It seems to be based on reverence for the young, and an extremely patient and protective attitude toward their physical and mental welfare. Yet you make them live in these huge caves, utterly out of contact with the natural world, and you teach them to be afraid of death—which of course makes them a little insane, because there is nothing anybody can do about death. It is like teaching them to be afraid of the second law of thermodynamics, just because living matter sets that law aside for a very brief period.”

James Blish book A Case of Conscience

Source: A Case of Conscience (1958), Chapter 12 (pp. 149-150)

Death , World , Way , Nature

“Some individuals may themselves be deceived by the compelling words of other individuals, but a much more significant number fall into the same state after being hypnotised by continuous eye-fixation upon an object and concentration of mind. This state can even be established before the eyelids are closed or a pronounced tendency to sleep has been felt. Suggestibility can also be increased by the sight of other patients in the experiment, and that by virtue of the laws of sympathy and imitation.”

James Braid (1795–1860) Scottish surgeon, hypnotist, and hypnotherapist

Original Philosophy of Hypnotism The International College of Hypnosis & Hypnotherapy

Sleep

“Turn all things to honey; this is the law of divine living.”

Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian nationalist, freedom fighter, philosopher, yogi, guru and poet

Thoughts and Aphorisms (1913), Karma

“The law sends us to Christ to be justified, and Christ sends us to the law to be regulated.”

John Flavel (1627–1691) English Presbyterian clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 375.

Christ

“It is at any rate evident, that a large and ample province remains for the exercise of Providence, without its being naturally perceptible by us; because obscurity, when applied to the interruption of laws, bears a necessary proportion to the imperfection of our knowledge when applied to the laws themselves, or rather to the effects which these laws, under their various and incalculable combinations, would of their own accord produce. And if it be said, that the doctrine of Divine Providence, by reason of the ambiguity under which its exertions present themselves, can be attended with no practical influenceupon our conduct; that, although we believe ever so firmly that there is a Providence, we must prepare, and provide, and act, as if there were none; I answer, that this is admitted: and that we further allege, that so to prepare, and so to provide, is consistent with the most perfect assurance of the reality of a Providence; and not only so, but that it is probably one advantage of the present state of our information, that our provisions and preparations are not disturbed by it. Or if it be still asked, Of what use at all then is the doctrine, if it neither alter our measures nor regulate our conduct? I answer again, that it is of the greatest use, but that it is a doctrine of sentiment and piety, not (immediately at least) of action or conduct; that it applies to the consolation of men's minds, to their devotions, to the excitement of gratitude, the support of patience, the keeping alive and the strengthening of every motive for endeavouring to please our Maker; and that these are great uses.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

Source: Natural Theology (1802), Ch. 26 : The Goodness of the Deity.

Men , Exercises , Motivation , Support

“Their lordships had some experience in that House two years ago, when restrictive laws were passed and when the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended…The effect of these measures was, in his opinion, the cause of a great portion of the discontent which now prevailed. After all the experience which they had had, there was no attempt at conciliation, no concession to the people; nothing was alluded to but a resort to coercion…The natural consequence of such a system, when once begun, was that it could not be stopped: discontents begot the necessity of force; the employment of force increased discontents: these would demand the exercise of new powers, till by degrees they would depart from all the principles of the constitution…Could government rest with confidence upon the sword for security? It was impossible that a government of such a nature could exist in England…without that spirit which the knowledge of the advantages they enjoyed under their constitution infused, all their energies would flag, and all their feelings by which their glory as a nation had been established, would be utterly dissipated.”

Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland

Speech in the House of Lords (23 November 1819). Parliamentary Debates, vol. xli, pp. 7-19, quoted in Alan Bullock and Maurice Shock (ed.), The Liberal Tradition from Fox to Keynes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), pp. 5-6.
1810s

People , Feeling , Exercises , Confidence

“We don’t live in a world of fixed historical laws that says the—as you describe it—liberal state was born at a particular time, lived and died, and that’s what we’re stuck with. But there are reasons why some things are much harder to retain, to invent, to reinvent than others.”

Tony Judt (1948–2010) British historian

quoted in "Talking With Tony Judt", The Nation (April 29, 2010) by Christine Smallwood

World , Time

“3902. Possession is eleven Points in the Law.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

“Humans… entered the 'cognitive niche.' Remember the definition of intelligence from Chapter 2: using knowledge of how things work to attain goals in the face of obstacles. By learning which manipulations achieve which goals, humans have mastered the art of the surprise attack. They use novel, goal-oriented courses of action to overcome the Maginot Line defenses of other organisms, which can respond only over evolutionary time. The manipulations can be novel because human knowledge is not just couched in concrete instructions like 'how to catch a rabbit.' Humans analyze the world using intuitive theories of objects, forces, paths, places, manners, states, substances, hidden biochemical essences, and, for other animals and people, beliefs and desires…. People compose new knowledge and plans by mentally playing out combinatorial interactions among these laws in their mind's eye.”

Steven Pinker book How the Mind Works

Source: How the Mind Works (1997), p. 188

People , World , Art , Intelligence

“The gun control mentality is ruthlessly absurd. It suggests that you pass a law which will bind law-abiding citizens — they won't have access to weapons. Now, we know that criminals, by definition, are people who don't obey laws. Therefore, you can pass all the laws that you want, they will still have access to these weapons, just as they have access to illegal drugs and other things right now. That means you end up with a situation in which the law-abiding folks can't defend themselves, and the crooks have all the guns.”

Alan Keyes (1950) American politician

Alan Keyes, U.S. Senate debate in Illinois, October 21, 2004. http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/media/debates/04_10_21debate2.htm.
2009

People

“What makes a piece of mathematical economics not only mathematics but also economics is, I believe, this: When we set up a system of theoretical relationships and use economic names for the otherwise purely theoretical variables involved, we have in mind some actual experiment, or some design of an experiment, which we could at least imagine arranging, in order to measure those quantities in real economic life that we think might obey the laws imposed on their theoretical namesakes.”

Trygve Haavelmo (1911–1999) Norwegian economist and econometrician

Trygve Haavelmo, "The probability approach in econometrics" in: Supplement to Econometrica. 12 91944), p. 5; Cited in Pearl (2012, 1-2)

Life , Imagination , Mathematics , Thinking

“The concept of guilt is found most powerfully developed even in the most primitive communal forms which we know: … the man is guilty who violates one of the original laws which dominate the society and which are mostly derived from a divine founder; the boy who is accepted into the tribal community and learns its laws, which bind him thenceforth, learns to promise; this promise is often given under the sign of death, which is symbolically carried out on the boy, with a symbolical rebirth.”

Martin Buber (1878–1965) German Jewish Existentialist philosopher and theologian

Source: Between Man and Man (1965), p. 178

Death , Boy , Communication , Learning

“We now face the culmination of a long campaign in the courts and in the halls of various governmental bodies, and in the press, to remove the laws against homosexuality from the statute books, and to permit any such relationship between consenting adults. Part of this is a new, anti-Biblical interpretation of this perversion. The facts are read in evolutionary framework, and so we are told it is a form of immaturity. Again, others read it as environmentally determined, so that the pervert is simply reflecting his environmental conditioning. Again there are others who say it is simply a fight for masculinity in a difficult world. All these and the other variations on the modern interpretation, share in common an environmental and an evolutionary approach. There are those in fact who claim that it is a basic component of all people, so that all of us have some aspect of every perversion in us.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Audio lectures, Homosexuality (n. d.)

People , Books , World , Reading

“I think of Abstract Art in the same way I think of all Art, Past and Present. I see it as divided into two Major categories, Objective and Subjective. Objective Art is Absolute Art. Subjective Art is Illustration, or communication by Symbols, Replicas, and Oblique Emotional Passes. They are both Art, but their Content has no Identity. Their difference cannot be defined as a difference of Idiom, because all Paintings have the Laws of Design as a common denominator. Design exists as an Idiom of Color-Space Logic, and it also exists in an Idiom of Representational Likenesses. Objective Art and Subjective Art exist in both Idioms. Their difference can only be defined in terms of what the Artist thinks his Purpose means-its Content as a Design Image.”

Stuart Davis (1892–1964) American painter

Source: George L. K. Morris, Willem De Kooning, Alexander Calder, Fritz Glarner, Robert Motherwell, Stuart Davis. " What Abstract Art Means to Me http://www.jstor.org/stable/4058250," in: The Bulletin of the Museum of Modern Art, Vol. 18, No. 3, (Spring, 1951), pp. 2-15

Art , Color , Way , Communication

“This skeptical method consists very much in vicious circles. You cannot know whether a fact be a fact till you have ascertained the laws of nature in the case, and you cannot know the laws of nature till you have ascertained facts.”

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) (1802–1871) Scottish publisher and writer

Source: Testimony: its Posture in the Scientific World (1859), p. 9

Nature

“If a state should pass laws forbidding its citizens to become wise and holy, it would be made a byword for all time. But this, in effect, is what our commercial, social, and political systems do. They compel the sacrifice of mental and moral power to money and dissipation.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 62

Money , Time

“But a meek humble Man of modest Sense,
Who, Preaching Peace, does practice Continence;
Whose pious life’s a proof he does believe,
Mysterious Truths, which no Man can conceive.
If upon Earth there dwell such God-like Men,
I'll here Recant my Paradox to them;
Adore those Shrines of Virtue, homage pay,
And, with the rabble world, their Laws obey.
If such there are, yet grant me This at least,
Man differs more from Man, than Man from Beast.”

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647–1680) English poet, and peer of the realm

ll. 212-221
A Satire Against Mankind (1679)

Life , Men , God , Truth

“Let me close by reminding you of what Newton actually did on the day that he conceived G = k \frac{mm'}{r^2}. …Newton did not have any subsidies, grants, funds, Secret Service money. But he had the moon. He said, "… I cannot throw a ball round the world, but let me picture the moon as if it were a ball which has been flung around the world… How long will it take to go round the world?" …He knew the value of gravity at the earth's surface …but he did not know the value of the earth's gravity for the moon. He said, "Let us suppose that it is given by an inverse square law. Now, how long will it take the moon to go around?"”

Jacob Bronowski (1908–1974) Polish-born British mathematician

It comes out at twenty-eight days. As Newton said, "They agreed pretty nearly."
The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination (1978)

Money , Secret , World

“By a law that was divine, most admirable, and bestowed by grace upon all, it was made known to men that community was greatly in their interest, and that they are therefore preserved by an order in which laws are established by the common consent of all, or at least of the wise and heroic, with the others’ support”

Nicholas of Cusa book De concordantia catholica

De concordantia catholica (The Catholic Concordance) (1434)

Men , Communication , Support

“There is no act more moral between men than that of rule and obedience. Woe to him that claims obedience when it is not due; woe to him that refuses it when it is! God's law is in that, I say, however the Parchment-laws may run: there is a Divine Right or else a Diabolic Wrong at the heart of every claim that one man makes upon another.”

Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher

1840s, Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840), The Hero As King

Men , God , Heart

“In every government there are three sorts of power: the legislative; the executive in respect to things dependent on the law of nations; and the executive in regard to matters that depend on the civil law.
By virtue of the first, the prince or magistrate enacts temporary or perpetual laws, and amends or abrogates those that have been already enacted. By the second, he makes peace or war, sends or receives embassies, establishes the public security, and provides against invasions. By the third, he punishes criminals, or determines the disputes that arise between individuals. The latter we shall call the judiciary power, and the other, simply, the executive power of the state.
When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person, or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty; because apprehensions may arise, lest the same monarch or senate should enact tyrannical laws, to execute them in a tyrannical manner.
Again, there is no liberty if the judiciary power be not separated from the legislative and executive. Were it joined with the legislative, the life and liberty of the subject would be exposed to arbitrary control; for the judge would be then the legislator. Were it joined to the executive power, the judge might behave with violence and oppression.
There would be an end of every thing, were the same man, or the same body, whether of the nobles or of the people, to exercise those three powers, that of enacting laws, that of executing the public resolutions, and of trying the causes of individuals.
The executive power ought to be in the hands of a monarch, because this branch of government, having need of dispatch, is better administered by one than by many: on the other hand, whatever depends on the legislative power, is oftentimes better regulated by many than by a single person.
But, if there were no monarch, and the executive power should be committed to a certain number of persons, selected from the legislative body, there would be an end of liberty, by reason the two powers would be united; as the same persons would sometimes possess, and would be always able to possess, a share in both.”

Montesquieu book The Spirit of the Laws

Book XI, Chapter 6.
The Spirit of the Laws (1748)
Source: Esprit des lois (1777)/L11/C6 - Wikisource, fr.wikisource.org, fr, 2018-07-07 https://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Esprit_des_lois_(1777)/L11/C6,

Life , War , People , Peace

“The presidency is seemingly bound by law, but in practice it can do just about anything it pleases. It can order up troops anywhere in the world, just as Clinton bragged in his acceptance speech at the Democratic convention. It can plow up a religious community in Texas and bury its members because they got on somebody’s nerves at the Justice Department. It can tap our phones, read our mail, watch our bank accounts, and tell us what we can and cannot eat, drink, and smoke.
The presidency can break up businesses, shut down airlines, void drilling leases, bribe foreign heads of state or arrest them and try them in kangaroo courts, nationalize land, engage in germ warfare, firebomb crops in Colombia, overthrow any government anywhere, erect tariffs, round up and discredit any public or private assembly it chooses, grab our guns, tax our incomes and our inheritances, steal our land, centrally plan the national and world economy, and impose embargoes on anything anytime. No prince or pope ever had this ability.”

Lew Rockwell (1944) American libertarian author and editor

6 October 1996 "Down With the Presidency"
1990s

World , Justice , Communication , Drink

“When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, the only effect it produces upon me is to convince me that he is an unalterable fool.”

Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English writer and clergyman

Peter Plymley's Letters (1808), Letter IV

Fools

“For a long time I was helpless before German influence, for, in Budapest and its vicinity, I lacked the means to check or thwart the joint action of the Germans and the Ministry for Home Affairs. As the defeat of Germany drew nearer, I regained, though slowly and imperfectly, a certain freedom of action. In the summer, I succeeded at last in having the possibility of freeing the Jews from the prohibitions and restrictions imposed on them by law. Of the innumerable requests that poured in, I rejected none. The deportations were supposed to be made to labour camps. Not before August did secret information reach me of the horrible truth about the extermination camps. It was Csatay, the Minister of War, who raised the matter at a Cabinet meeting and demanded that our government should insist on the Germans clarifying the situation. This demand was not met by the Cabinet. The Churches, I must here add, did what they could for those in distress by providing them with certificates of baptism. In this, they acted in accordance with the true wishes of our people.”

Miklós Horthy (1868–1957) Hungarian Admiral and Regent 1920-1944

Source: Memoirs, p. 268

War , People , Truth , Secret

“My Instrument being fixed, I immediately began to observe such Stars as I judged most proper to give me light into the Cause of the Motion… There was Variety enough of small ones; and not less than twelve, that I could observe through all the Seasons of the Year; they being bright enough to be seen in the Day-time, when nearest the Sun. I had not been long observing, before I perceived, that the Notion we had before entertained of the Stars being farthest North and South, when the Sun was about the Equinoxes, was only true of those that were near the solstitial Colure: And after I had continued my Observations a few Months, I discovered what I then apprehended to be a general Law, observed by all the Stars, viz. That each of them became stationary, or was farthest North or South, when they passed over my Zenith at six of the Clock, either in the Morning or Evening. I perceived likewise, that whatever Situation the Stars were in with respect to the cardinal Points of the Ecliptick, the apparent Motion of every one tended the same Way, when they passed my Instrument about the same Hour of the Day or Night; for they all moved Southward, while they passed in the Day, and Northward in the Night; so that each was farthest North, when it came about Six of the Clock in the Evening, and farthest South when it came about Six in the Morning.”

James Bradley (1693–1762) English astronomer; Astronomer Royal

A Letter from the Reverend Mr. James Bradley Savilian Proffesor of Astronomy at Oxford, and F.R.S. to Dr. Edmund Halley, Astronom. Reg. &c. giving an Account of a New Discovered Motion of the Fix'd Stars. Philosophical Transactions (Jan 1, 1727) 1727-1728 No. 406. vol. XXXV. pp. 637-661 http://rstl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/35/399-406/637.full.pdf+html, pp.643-644

Way , Star , Light , Time

“Thus we may found the science for the study of the life of signs against the background of social life; it would form part of social psychology, and consequently of general psychology; we shall call it semiology (from Greek sēmeion — 'sign'). That science would explain to us in what signs consist of and by what laws they are governed. Since it is a science which does not yet exist, we do not know what it will be like; it has, however, a reason for its existence, its place is allocated in advance. Linguistics is only a part of that general science; the laws which semiology will discover, will be applicable also to linguistics, which in turn will be linked with a domain clearly defined throughout the entirety of human affairs.”

Ferdinand de Saussure book Course in General Linguistics

Source: Cours de linguistique générale (1916), p. 33; as cited in: Adam Schaff (1962). Introduction to semantics, p. 9

Life , Study , Science , Parting

“Happiness is the final and perfect fruit of obedience to the laws of life.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

The Simplest Way to be Happy (1933)

Life , Perfection , Happiness

“Marriage is like a table with four legs - the couple, the children, the parents and the in-laws. Break any of these and the marriage crashes to the floor”

Siddharth Katragadda (1972) Indian writer

page 4
Dark Rooms (2002)

Marriage , Children , Parent

“We have not a direct intuition of simultaneity, nor of the equality of two durations. If we think we have this intuition, this is an illusion. We replace it by the aid of certain rules which we apply almost always without taking count of them.
…We …choose these rules, not because they are true, but because they are the most convenient, and we may recapitulate them as follows: "The simultaneity of two events, or the order of their succession, the equality of two durations, are to be so defined that the enunciation of the natural laws may be as simple as possible. In other words, all these rules, all these definitions, are only the fruit of an unconscious opportunism."”

Henri Poincaré book The Value of Science

Source: The Value of Science (1905), Ch. 2: The Measure of Time

Nature , Thinking , Success

“Let us take the time in this fast and ever-changing life which harasses us and tears us to pieces; to have the strength to remain slow and calm. To work outside the elements of disintegration that surrounds us. To comprehend life in it slow and calm sense. The work of art requires a temperate climate in order to develop fully. In this heightened tempo which is the law of life, to determine fixed points to hold onto them and to slowly work on the achievement of the future”

Fernand Léger (1881–1955) French painter

Fernand Léger – Das Figürliche Werk, exhibition catalogue, Köln, 1978, p. 52
Quotes of Fernand Leger, 1970's

Life , Art , Sense , Tear

“Was it possible that Napoleon should win the battle of Waterloo? We answer, No! Why? Because of Wellington? Because of Blücher? No! Because of God! For Bonaparte to conquer at Waterloo was not the law of the nineteenth century. It was time that this vast man should fall. He had been impeached before the Infinite! He had vexed God! Waterloo was not a battle. It was the change of front of the Universe!”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

"The Battle of Waterloo", reported in Oliver Ernesto Branch, ed., The Hamilton Speaker (1878), p. 53

God , Universe , Change , Time

“Daily the Negro is coming more and more to look upon law and justice, not as protecting safeguards, but as sources of humiliation and oppression. The laws are made by men who have little interest in him; they are executed by men who have absolutely no motive for treating the black people with courtesy and consideration; and, finally, the accused law-breaker is tried, not by his peers, but too often by men who would rather punish ten innocent Negroes than let one guilty one escape.”

W.E.B. Du Bois book The Souls of Black Folk

Source: The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Ch. IX: Of the Sons of Master and Man

Men , People , Justice , Motivation

“Economic theory, since the time of the Physiocrats, has endeavored to get rid of the human will and to explain economic phenomena in terms of physical and hedonic forces. The human will had been the main reliance of the Mercantilists and of the economic theory of the Church fathers. But the will was arbitrary, capricious and contrary to natural laws. There were two stages of these physical theories which attempted to get away from the will:-the natural rights arld physical equilibrium stage of foreordained evolution of Quesnay, Adam Smith and Karl Marx, and the natural selection stage of blind evolution that followed Darwin, whose distinguished exponent in economics is Veblen. The theorists of each stage attempted to get rid of the human will and to explain economic phenomena as the working out of natural forces, either foreordained or blind. It was a concept of society as the natural growth of a mechanistic equilibrium.”

John R. Commons (1862–1945) United States institutional economist and labor historian

Source: Legal foundations of capitalism. 1924, p. 376

Nature , Time

“Mathripala Sirisena: Let me explain the facts. First, let's look at my brother who is Chairman of the Telecom company. You have to differentiate between nepotism, and members of the family getting involved in governance. When you take the telecom institution, it's a mix of state and private sector. Importantly, it comes under a different ministry: it's an institution that comes under a different minister. My brother hasn't been involved in governance in any instance. On the other side, you mentioned my son-in-law, he has in no way been given a powerful position. He has only a minor position on my personal staff. Then you mention my son. Usually, we all know that when you go to the UN General Assembly, there are a certain number of seats allocated to each country's delegation. It's only in accordance with that allocation that government representatives from here attended. I must very clearly say: my son was not included in that number. I totally reject describing this as nepotism. Because in politics, we also need to look at people's understanding, our culture. So within these issues, we have to look at the way the government acted, before I came to power and how we act today. So I must clearly say no member of family has been involved in governance at any point.”

Maithripala Sirisena (1951) Sri Lankan politician, 7th President of Sri Lanka

Talk to Al Jazeera - Sri Lankan president: No allegations of war crimes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udGmG-eqJ6o

People , Family , Way , Understanding

“They should be sent back as soon as it can be determined who responsible adults in their families are. There are concerns about whether all of them can be sent back, but I think all of them who can be should be reunited with their families…We have to send a clear message: Just because your child gets across the border, that doesn’t mean the child gets to stay. We don’t want to send a message that’s contrary to our laws or will encourage more children to make that dangerous journey.”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

per 18 June 2014 Washington Post article https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/06/18/hillary-minors-crossing-border-must-be-sent-home/?utm_term=.4fa77b8f5771
Interim (2013–2015)

Children , Family , Thinking

“We Scots derive a strong sense of identity from our nationhood. Scotland has always retained a unique culture and character - not defined in opposition to our neighbours, but by ourselves and our basic values. We Scots have made great contributions in the world of philosophy, economics, science and letters. We were the first country in the world to adopt free education for all. And our legal system is a unique hybrid of the civil and common law traditions.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Vision for Scotland in the European Union (December 12, 2007)

World , Education , Sense , Strong

“Solon used to say that speech was the image of actions;… that laws were like cobwebs,—for that if any trifling or powerless thing fell into them, they held it fast; while if it were something weightier, it broke through them and was off.”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

Solon, 10.
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 1: The Seven Sages

“An attack on law enforcement is an attack on all Americans. I have a message to every last person threatening the peace on our streets and the safety of our police: when I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and order our country.”

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

2010s, 2016, July, (21 July 2016)

Peace , Personality , Country

“Osama bin Laden’s welcome death has ignited debate over whether the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques used on enemy prisoners were instrumental in locating bin Laden, and whether they are a justifiable means for gathering intelligence.
Much of this debate is a definitional one: whether any or all of these methods constitute torture. I believe some of them do, especially waterboarding, which is a mock execution and thus an exquisite form of torture. As such, they are prohibited by American laws and values, and I oppose them. … Mistreatment of enemy prisoners endangers our own troops, who might someday be held captive. While some enemies, and al-Qaeda surely, will never be bound by the principle of reciprocity, we should have concern for those Americans captured by more conventional enemies, if not in this war then in the next.”

John McCain (1936–2018) politician from the United States

"Bin Laden’s death and the debate over torture" in The Washington Post (11 May 2011) http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/bin-ladens-death-and-the-debate-over-torture/2011/05/11/AFd1mdsG_story.html
2010s, 2011

Death , War , Intelligence

“The means whereby this work of Nature is brought to its consummate issue are forces of Nature working under her Laws by the method of cause and effect. The principle, or "law," of causation is a metaphysical postulate; in the sense that such a fact as causation is unproved and unprovable. No man has ever observed a case of causation, as is a commonplace with the latterday psychologists.”

Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929) American academic

Source: The Instinct of Workmanship and the State of the Industrial Arts, 1914, p. 67

Nature , Sense

“[Biology has] become the paramount science, exceeding other disciplines, including physics and chemistry at least, in the creative tumult of its disciplines and disputations. […] I'll also be so bold at this point to suggest that we are now at the edge of establishing the two fundamental laws of biology: The first law is that all of the phenomena of biology, the entities and the processes, are ultimately obedient to the laws of physics and chemistry. Not immediately reducible to them, but ultimately consistent and in consilience with them, by a cause and effect explanation. The second law is that all biological phenomena, these entities and processes that define life itself, have arisen by evolution through natural selection.”

Edward O. Wilson (1929) American biologist

Talk at the 50th anniversary of New Scientist magazine (2006).

Life , Nature , Science

“General laws cannot give way to particular cases.”

William Henry Ashurst (judge) (1725–1807) English judge

King v. The College of Physicians (1797), 7 T. R. 290.

Way

“When you (President Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau) called me at Lomaloma in December 1987 and asked me to form an Interim Government to prepare the country for a return to parliamentary rule, I knew the task at hand would be onerous. Fiji had experienced the ordeal of two military coups. Society was fractured, the economy was tottering and the country had been ostracised by some of its oldest friends and allies. There was no Parliament and no properly functioning political system. Even institutions of State, such as the judiciary, were seriously weakened, to the extent that the citizenry justifiably feared a breakdown in law and order. The business community was hit by a slump in sales and confidence, leading to reduced earnings and loss of jobs.”

Kamisese Mara (1920–2004) President of Fiji

(On the eve of final his departure from the Prime Ministerial office). (Report to President Ganilau, 15 May 1992).

Fear , Confidence , Communication , Business

“Political parties in the United States would not allow candidates to reach that level unless they are qualified to lead a country the size of the United States of America. I believe that that statement was not made after our most recent meeting between myself and Mrs. Clinton. But also in Egypt there will not be a chance for any dictatorship because in Egypt there is a constitution, there is law, and there the will of the people which will refuse to allow any leader to stay in his position for any period longer than his term which is four years.”

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (1954) Current President of Egypt

Remarks by al-Sisi responding to Democratic presidential candidate Hilary Clinton's claims that Egypt is "an army dictatorship" during an interview with CNN's Erin Burnett on 21 September 2016 http://edition.cnn.com/2016/09/21/us/egyptian-president-abdel-fattah-el-sisi-erin-burnett-outfront-cnn/
2016

People , Chance , Country

“"Any graduate of the ___ Business School should be able to beat an index fund over the course of a market cycle."
Statements such as these are made with alarming frequency by investment professionals. In some cases, subtle and sophisticated reasoning may be involved. More often (alas), the conclusions can only be justified by assuming that the laws of arithmetic have been suspended for the convenience of those who choose to pursue careers as active managers.”

William F. Sharpe (1934) American economist

William F Sharpe, "The arithmetic of active management." Financial Analysts Journal 47.1 (1991): 7-9.

School , Business

“A Man ought to form in his own Mind an exact and clear Idea of what Liberty is. Liberty is the Right of doing whatsoever the Laws allow: And if any one Citizen could do what the Laws forbid, there would be no more Liberty; because others would have an equal Power of doing the same.”

Catherine the Great (1729–1796) Empress of Russia

Item 38
Proposals for a New Law Code (1768)

Idea

“But--criminals are remote from you--as in love, they turn away and turn me away from the world and its laws. Thiers smells of sweat, sperm, and blood. In short, to my body and my thristy soul it offers devotion. It was because their world contains these erotic conditions that I was bent on evil.”

Jean Genet book The Thief's Journal

The Thief's Journal (1949)

Love , World , Soul , Evil

“Intelligence is given every wise opportunity to develop. Unfortunate if it is overclouded by class consciousness. If labor's fear of immigration is only a way of asserting, in an organized plea, labor's right to monopoly, it must be remembered that such an attitude has never been successful, and will not be successful in this case. There are those who leach the laborer that the fewer hours he works, the better off he is. In order to maintain that belief, they have attempted, through organization, to dictate to government. This attitude is against public conscience, against the working of economic law. There was a time, in our country's history, when we believed that leisure meant opportunity. But educated people soon found that opportunity lay not in leisure but in effort; so they went to work. The ideal for rich and poor alike is that any one, through honest effort, may assume and secure any position for which he is fitted.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

1920s, Whose Country Is This? (1921)

People , Education , Fear , Way

“If Muslim people do not change their mind in spite of the changes of social conditions, and if we supplement Islamic courtesy and law without explaining and advertising real Islamic beliefs at the same time, then it is impossible to save the minds of the people.”

Ma Fuxiang (1876–1932) Chinese politician

The completion of the idea of dual loyalty towards China and Islam, Masumi, Matsumoto, 2010-06-28 http://science-islam.net/article.php3?id_article=676&lang=fr,

People , Change , Time

“When you allow millions of people to immigrate from places where they mutilate their daughters as a matter of course; where they kill them in a heartbeat over some twisted sense of honor; and where rape victims are treated as criminals; it doesn't take a genius to know that you're going to be importing these values and attitudes as well, wholesale, unless you take steps to prevent it. And that's something we've spectacularly failed to do in Europe. Indeed, we've encouraged it by fostering separatism and ghettoization in the guise of our old friend, Multiculturalism. And as a consequence, Islamic violence against women and girls is an ugly reality in Europe. And for anyone to use the law to try and suppress discussion of it is not enlightened or tolerant or liberal. It's shameful and stupid and cowardly and unforgivable.”

Pat Condell (1949) Stand-up comedian, writer, and Internet personality

"The Criminal Truth" (28 January 2011) http://youtube.com/watch?v=IEkelAsmcf4
2011

Women , People , Stupidity , Girl

“Hayek’s move from economic theory to political philosophy was a natural evolution in his ideas. First, he considered the influence of prices in production. Then he considered the larger question of the role of prices in social life. The conclusion he reached was that law should guarantee to each person a protected sphere within which each could live as much as possible as he pleased. Later in his career, he progressed to the idea that whole societies through their customs, morals, and rules are engaged in macrocompetition, the survivor of which would possess the customs, morals, and rules that are the most materially productive and result in the highest standard of living for the most—the economist’s goal.”

Alan O. Ebenstein (1959) American political scientist, educator and author

Hayek's Journey: The Mind of Friedrich Hayek (2003)

Life , Idea , Question , Nature

“Had Ingersoll and Phillips devoted their lives to the practice of law for pay the divine fire within them would have burned to ashes and they would have died in mediocrity.”

Eugene V. Debs (1855–1926) American labor and political leader

The Secret of Efficient Expression (1911)

“If, by the grace of God, we have passed the worst of this storm, the future months will be easy. If we shall be called upon to endure more of this period, we must gird ourselves for even greater effort, for today we are writing the introduction to the future history of civilization in America. The question is whether that history shall be written in terms of individual responsibility, and the capacity of the Nation for voluntary cooperative action, or whether it shall be written in terms of futile attempt to cure poverty by the enactment of law, instead of the maintained and protected initiative of our people.”

Herbert Hoover (1874–1964) 31st President of the United States of America

Address to the Gridiron Club (27 April 1931)

God , People , History , Question

“That in all capital or criminal prosecutions a man bath a right to demand the cause and nature of his accusation, to be confronted with the accusers and witnesses, to call for evidence in his favor, and to a speedy trial by an impartial jury of twelve men of his vicinage, without whose unanimous consent he cannot be found guilty; nor can he be compelled to give evidence against himself; that no man be deprived of his liberty, except by the law of the land or the judgment of his peers.”

George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention

Article 8
Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776)

Men , Nature

“We have ceased to be a nation under law but instead a homeland where the withered Bill of Rights, like a dead trumpet vine, clings to our pseudo-Roman columns.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

"The State of the Union," The Nation (13 September 2004)
2000s

Dead

“Hubert Humphrey, one of the chief authors and sponsors of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, had declared that under Title VII no discrimination on the basis of race or color was to be lawful. He explicitly said that this meant no discrimination of white against black, and no discrimination of black against white.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

1990s, The Party of Lincoln vs. The Party of Bureaucrats (1996)

Color

“It is easy for a rabbi to establish prohibitions, but a rabbi's real strength is to teach Torah and rule on law with an emphasis on what is permitted.”

Ovadia Yosef (1920–2013) Israeli rabbi

Quoted in Jewish Chronicle, 11 Oct 2013 page 22.

“Then, after the storms of battle, were heard the calm words of peace spoken by the conquering nation, saying to the foe that lay prostrate at its feet: "This is our only revenge — that you join us in lifting into the serene firmament of the Constitution, to shine like stars for ever and ever, the immortal principles of truth and justice: that all men, white or black, shall be free, and shall stand equal before the law."”

James A. Garfield (1831–1881) American politician, 20th President of the United States (in office in 1881)

1880s, Speech Nominating John Sherman for President (1880)

Men , Truth , Peace , Justice

“Hatred of the priest is one of man's profoundest instincts, as well as one of the least known. That it is as old as the race itself no one doubts, yet our age has raised it to an almost prodigious degree of refinement and excellence. With the decline or disappearance of other powers, the priest, even though appearing so intimately integrated into the life of society, has become a more singular and unclassifiable being than any of those old magicians the ancient world used to keep locked up like sacred animals in the depths of its temples, existing in the intimacy of the gods alone. Priests moreover are all the more singular and unclassifiable in that they do not recognize themselves as such and are nearly always dupes of the most gross outward appearances — whether of the irony of some or the servile deference of others. But that contradiction, by nature more political than religious and used far too long to nurture clerical pride, does, through the growing feeling of their loneliness and to the extent that it is gradually transformed into hostile indifference, throw them unarmed into the heart of social conflicts they naively pride themselves on being able to resolve by using texts. But, then, what does it matter? The hour is coming when, on the ruins of the old Christian order, a new order will be born that will indeed be an order of the world, the order of the Prince of this World, of that prince whose kingdom is of this world. And the hard law of necessity, stronger than any illusions, will then remove the very object for clerical pride so long maintained simply by conventions outlasting any belief. And the footsteps of beggars shall cause the earth to tremble once again.”

Georges Bernanos book Monsieur Ouine

Source: Monsieur Ouine, 1943, pp.176–177

Life , God , Hostility , Age

“The 2nd law of thermodynamics has the same degree of truth as the statement that if you throw a tumblerful of water into the sea, you cannot get the same tumblerful of water out again.”

James Clerk Maxwell (1831–1879) Scottish physicist

in a letter to Lord Rayleigh, as quoted in John William Strutt, Third Baron Rayleigh http://books.google.com/books?id=cKk5AAAAMAAJ (1924), p. 47.

Truth , Water , Sea

“There exist no provisions in our law that perfectly and precisely describe the form of criminality that shall be judged here.”

Julio César Strassera (1933–2015) Argentine lawyer and jurist

El Diario del Juicio, 25 Sept 1985 (unpaginated)

“The laws which governed the spontaneous jumps of the kangaroos were shown to be of the simplest; out of any number of kangaroos a certain proportion always jumped within a specified time, and nothing seemed to be able to change this number. Also, before the jumps took place, there was nothing in the world of phenomena to distinguish those kangaroos that were about to jump from those that were not… to help fill the quota demanded by the statistical law. As discontinuity marched into the world of phenomena through one door, causality walked out through another.”

James Jeans (1877–1946) British mathematician and astronomer

Physics and Philosophy (1942)

World , Change , Time , Help

“I have myself seen the depredations of the Afghans round Dehli and Mattra. God defend us from them! It makes the very hair of the body stand on end to think of them. Two hundred thousand men were destroyed in these massacres, and the hordes of the enemy were without number. Such atrocities, forsooth, were perpetrated in compliance with their religion and law! What cared they for the religion, the law, the honour and reputation of the innocent sufferers? It was enough for such bigots that splendour accrued by their deeds to the faith of Muhammad and 'Ali!”

Ahmed Shah Durrani (1722–1772) founder of the Durrani Empire, considered founder of the state of Afghanistan

MuntakhAb-ut-TawArIkh, translated in Elliot and Dowson, The [[History of India as told by its own Historians]], Volume VIII, pp. 405-06.

Men , God , Faith , Religion

“In the White House, you never worry about the law. I never worried about the law, about breaking the law. This never entered my mind, and I doubt it ever entered the minds of people who asked me to do things - maybe for a little bit after Nixon resigned, but it evaporated almost immediately. My thinking was, if the President wants it done, it's right. I never questioned it. It never occurred to me that some sheriff might show up someday with a warrant.”

Warren Gulley (1922–2012) American military non-commissioned officer (NCO)

[Gulley, Bill, Breaking Cover, 1980, Simon and Schuster, 0671245481, 21, 25]

People , Question , Thinking , Housing

“The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Source: Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson (1786), p. 111

Wisdom

“A community which is inspired by feelings of ill-will towards other communities is low and ignoble. I entertain the highest respect for the customs, laws, religious and social institutions of other communities. Nay, it is my duty, according to the teaching of the Quran, even to defend their places of worship, if need be. Yet I love the communal group which is the source of my life and behaviour; and which has formed me what I am by giving me its religion, its literature, its thought, its culture, and thereby recreating its whole past as a living operative factor, in my present consciousness.”

Muhammad Iqbál (1877–1938) Urdu poet and leader of the Pakistan Movement

Sir Muhammad Iqbal’s 1930 Presidential Address to the 25th Session of the All-India Muslim League, Allahabad, 29 December 1930 (from University of Columbia website http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_iqbal_1930.html)

Love , Life , Religion , Feeling

“In the middle of the last century there was comparatively little movement of workmen from place to place; but Adam Smith's fierce attack on the law of settlement shows that migration was on the increase. The world was, in fact, on the eve of an industrial revolution; and it is interesting to remember that the two men who did most to bring it about, Adam Smith and James Watt, met, as I have mentioned, in Glasgow, when one was dreaming of the book, and the other of the invention, which were to introduce a new industrial age.”

Arnold Toynbee (1852–1883) British economic historian

Source: Lectures on The Industrial Revolution in England (1884), p. 189

Men , Books , Age , World

“Working in the abstract way seems to release one’s personality and sharpen the perceptions so that in the observation of humanity or landscape it is the wholeness of inner intention which moves one so profoundly. The components fall into place and one is no longer aware of the detail except as the necessary significance of wholeness and unity.... a rhythm of form which has its roots in earth but reaches outwards towards the unknown experiences of the future. The thought underlying this form is, for me, the delicate balance the spirit of man maintains between his knowledge and the laws of the universe.”

Barbara Hepworth (1903–1975) English sculptor

Source: 1961 - 1975, Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial autobiography', 1970, p. 286

Way , Knowledge , Universe , Future

Quotes about laws page 31

Quotes about laws
page 31